Killeen has had 3 criminal homicides this year — all of them in April

The most recent shooting, on Sunday afternoon, left one man dead in an apartment in the 1700 block of Old Farm to Market Road. Police were called to that location around 3:30 p.m. Sunday and found Kenny Ray Morgan, 42, deceased from an apparent gunshot wound.

There were at least two other shootings in Killeen Sunday in which people were injured but did not die.

Police were summoned to the 800 block of Valley Drive just after 7 a.m. where they found a man and woman with gunshot wounds. The man, 35, and the woman, 40, were taken to local hospitals and are said to be in stable condition, police said.

In the pre-dawn hours Sunday, police responded to another shooting in the 100 block of North Fourth Street and found a man, 39, who had been shot. He was transported to a local hospital by helicopter.

On Friday, just after midnight, police were called to the 2900 block of Zephyr Road and found a man and a woman with gunshot wounds. Both victims were taken to local hospitals, but the man, whose name has not been released by police, succumbed to his injuries later that day, according to the Killeen Police Department.

On April 8, police were sent to an address in the 800 block of Atlas Avenue where they found Va’Quintin Carmon Maestre , 18, with a gunshot wound. They performed life-saving measures, but Maestre succumbed to his injuries. “This is the first murder victim for the City of Killeen this year,” KPD said in a news release at the time.

In another case, which police are not calling a criminal homicide, KPD was sent just after midnight on March 25 to the 4300 block of Hank Drive where they found a woman with a gunshot wound. Jamileth Joana Shapiro, 47, was taken to a local hospital and died.

In late March, KPD spokeswoman Ofelia Miramontez said that case was the city’s first homicide for 2023.

An arrest has been made in one of the four death cases.

Jarkell Jamal Dean, 31, was charged with murder in the case of Maestre’s death. Dean is in Bell County Jail on a $1,000,000 bond.

The Herald reached out to KPD for updates on this year’s homicide cases, but had not received an answer back by late Tuesday.

Although homicide statistics were higher by the end of April last year — a total of 11 in the first three months alone — there were none reported in April of 2022. Of those 11 fatalities, three were solved with an arrest by the end of 2022. In the case of Neosha Johnson, 25, who was fatally shot in the 5800 block of Redstone Drive on March 11, 2022, the primary suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.