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As Dana Bailey lay dying in his Southeast Washington apartment last year from a single gunshot wound to his chest, he told a D.C. police officer he knew his assailant.
“Papi shot me,” Bailey said, in an interaction that was caught on the officer’s body camera and played in D.C. Superior Court on Monday.
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“Who?” the officer asked.
“My wife know him. Don’t leave me,” Bailey pleaded.
Prosecutors allege that “Papi” was a nickname used by 26-year-old Keyon Slaughter, a Waldorf, Md., man who they say was having an affair with Bailey’s wife. Detectives arrested him last month and charged him with first-degree murder while armed, while charging Bailey’s wife, Lakeyvette Sears, 43, with obstruction of justice in the case. Among other things, prosecutors say, she deleted phone records before letting investigators examine her phone.
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At a hearing in D.C. Superior Court on Monday, the two watched from a table with their defense attorneys as prosecutors showed Bailey’s dying moments and revealed new details about the case.
The killing occurred just after 10 a.m. on Dec. 5, when Bailey, who had retired from the Air Force, and Sears returned to their Southeast Washington apartment in the 3200 block of E Street, D.C. homicide detective Michael Pepperman testified. Sears told detectives that the couple had been scheduled to go to court that day because they were preparing to have Bailey adopt Sears’s three youngest sons — ages, 10, 8 and 5 — from a previous relationship, Pepperman said.
Authorities allege that Sears went to the bathroom and Bailey went into their bedroom. There, authorities say, Slaughter was waiting, and fired a .40 caliber bullet into Bailey’s chest.
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Pepperman testified that when detectives questioned Sears about who her husband was referring to when he used the name “Papi,” she gave conflicting answers. But she told police she saw a man who she thought was Slaughter running out of the apartment following the shooting.
No arrests were made for more than six months, as detectives investigated. When detectives arrested Slaughter and Sears on July 12, they found that the two were now living together, Pepperman testified.
Slaughter’s attorney, Joseph Yarbough of the District’s Public Defender Service, argued that detectives arrested the wrong man, and that there was no social media or other evidence that Slaughter used the nickname “Papi.” He noted that authorities did not find Slaughter’s DNA or fingerprints in the home, and when police arrived, they found Sears’s teenage son and a friend standing over Bailey’s body. Body camera footage caught the youths apparently laughing, Yarbough said, adding that detectives did not fully investigate their connection to the case.
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Sears’s attorney, Stephen LoGerfo, argued that his client did not try to obstruct the investigation by deleting text messages, and that detectives failed to determine if she routinely deleted such messages or if her phone deletes such older messages automatically.
Authorities found surveillance evidence that they said showed Slaughter in a black Nissan Altima following the bus that Bailey and Sears were on as they made their way to court to start the adoption process. Authorities also pointed to Instagram photos that showed Slaughter wearing what they said was the same dark-colored Canada Goose jacket and orange hat that Sears said he was wearing at the time of the shooting. And they alleged that Slaughter’s cellphone pinged from a cellphone tower about a mile from the apartment beforehand.
Sears had told detectives she had not spoken to Slaughter in months at the time her husband was killed, authorities alleged. But detectives obtained records that showed Slaughter called Sears 21 times in the 20 minutes before the murder. They also found that Sears phoned Slaughter immediately after dialing 911 to report the shooting. That call lasted five seconds, according to court charging records. Detectives say Sears deleted the phone logs before she allowed detectives to search her phone.
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The FBI recovered some messages, including one from October in which Bailey asserted to his wife that he knew she was having an affair with “Papi.”
“I know you’re having sex with him. I know you don’t want me,” Bailey wrote, adding later: “I’ve been through your phone and all. I know you love Papi.”
Judge Anthony C. Epstein allowed Sears to remain out of jail and at home until trial. But he ordered Slaughter to remain in jail, noting that he was on probation at the time of the shooting for an armed robbery case in Maryland. Epstein said Slaughter “had a motive” to kill Bailey, based on Slaughter’s relationship with Sears.
Slaughter and Sears are scheduled to return to court for another hearing on Oct. 20.
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