Toilet tank holding $11,000 in cash among clues in Montgomery homicide case
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Version 0 of 1. The clues to the killing, police said Thursday, include $11,000 in cash wrap ped in heat-sealed plastic in a toilet tank, and a gunman known as Mo who purportedly said: “The boy went down.” Mo is Mouctar Sylla, 27, of Castle Boulevard in the Briggs Chaney area of Montgomery County, according to police. He was booked into jail Thursday on charges of second-degree murder, possession of marijuana with intent to sell and firearms charges. A judge ordered him held on $3 million bond. In support of the criminal charges, detectives on Thursday filed a 10-page affidavit outlining events before and after the March 11 killing of Sheldon Williams, 20, of the District. Williams was found facedown with a gunshot to the back of the head, in a grassy area along Castle Boulevard. The affidavit is complicated, a reflection of detectives having to stitch together the narrative with information from several witnesses, none of whom appears to have seen everything. One thing does seem clear: On March 11, Williams went to Sylla’s apartment to buy marijuana, according to the affidavit and a police spokesman. There was some type of argument, and Williams may have left with no drugs, according to the court records. One witness, identified by his initials, would later tell detectives that he, another man and Williams began walking back to their car from the apartment when a man came up from behind who had dreadlocks, a white cap and a white shirt bearing a large Polo emblem. “The suspect yelled at them to get their attention, then chambered a round in a gun and began shooting at the three of them,” detectives wrote. Two of the men made it to the car, but Williams did not. The two later went looking for him, and ran into police working a homicide scene. Another witness told detectives about hearing three gunshots, looking out a window and seeing a man with braids and a white shirt run to the passenger side of a Dodge Avenger. Detectives reviewed surveillance footage from nearby businesses, which showed a passenger in the Avenger with long hair and a white shirt, possibly with the same logo in the breast area of his shirt as seen by others. The description matched Sylla, who owns an Avenger, according to police. Detectives searched Sylla’s apartment. Inside, they said in court records, they found the wrapped cash in the toilet tank, an additional $690 in a camouflage jacket, a digital scale, and marijuana stored in a suitcase. Detectives said they spoke to a woman who said she was driving the Avenger that night and she told them she saw Sylla run after three men. “Mo chased after them to see what they were doing,” she said, as recounted in the police affidavit. That filing also said that the woman said she heard three shots before Sylla came to the Avenger and got inside, where the woman asked him about the gunfire. “Sylla told her, ‘The boy went down . . . I think they came to rob me,’ ” detectives wrote. The detectives’ filing continued: Sylla also told the woman there was an exchange of gunfire with the other men — their shooting twice, his shooting once. He also said he thinks one of the men may have accidentally struck the other one. Or, as he told the woman driving the Avenger, “That guy just shot his friend. Let’s go. . . . They tried to shoot at me and I tried to shoot at them.” Detectives brought Sylla in for questioning. “Sylla contradicted himself multiple times throughout the interview,” they wrote, citing several examples. “Sylla denied that he pulled out his gun, but also admitted to pulling out his gun and waving it around. Sylla said he chased the subjects, and other times he was asking why he would chase three guys with a gun.” |