CHARLOTTE — Police say a 22-year-old suspect is in custody on a murder charge after a double-homicide that happened in late December in south Charlotte.
Channel 9 first reported when two victims showed up at the hospital on Dec. 20. Police said both of them had been shot on Farmhurst Drive.
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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department identified the victims as 16-year-old Bravlio Ayala and 18-year-old Samir Molina.
On Friday, CMPD announced that a suspect in the shooting had been arrested by officers on Thursday. The suspect was identified as Aristides Eli Orellana-Ramirez.
Witnesses told police that Ramirez was sitting in the back-left passenger seat in a vehicle with Ayala and Molina. Ayala was driving, and the witnesses said they were going to a party on Farmhurst Drive. When they got to a parking lot, witnesses said shots were fired, so the people inside the car started firing into a parking lot. That’s when Ayala was shot in the back of the head.
According to a court affidavit, police reviewed video from the incident and saw that the only muzzle flashes visible were coming from Ayala’s vehicle. Officers saw a muzzle flash from directly behind the driver’s door before Ayala dropped to the ground, and that’s where Ramirez was allegedly located.
CMPD didn’t specify how Molina died.
Ramirez is currently facing one murder charge. When detectives interviewed him, he said he had been drinking and didn’t remember what happened. He told officers he picked up a firearm from near Ayala after he got shot.
Police also found that a nearby apartment had been shot into during the incident. Ramirez is charged with discharging a firearm into occupied property.
(VIDEO: Passerby finds unresponsive man near apartment parking lot; homicide investigation launched)
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