A 16-year old suspect is in custody, charged with the brutal slaying of a 28-year-old Indianola man.
Indianola Police Investigator Sergeant Regina Simpson said on Monday that Demarion Quashawn Gardner turned himself in on Friday and confessed to the crime.
He has had his initial appearance before Municipal Court Judge Neysha Sanders, is now charged with first-degree murder and a $500,000 bond has been set.
Gardner is charged in the shooting death of Dereyaki Moore. The violent attack took place on September 1 at the intersection of Bates and Curtis streets.
“Even though he confessed to killing him, he didn’t give us a real motive as to what happened,” she said.
According to Simpson, Moore was apparently carjacked at the Neighborhood Grocer on Bates Street by a yet to be identified person, who drove off with the car Moore was driving.
“Dereyaki Moore had gone to Neighborhood store and when he came out the store apparently whoever was with the suspect jacked him for the car he was in,” Simpson said.
Moore left the store, headed south, on foot and in less than a block away, at the intersection; he encountered Gardner, who had apparently been a passenger in a vehicle linked to the carjacking at the store.
Video surveillance reportedly indicates that Gardner got out of a vehicle at the store and walked south on Bates to lie in wait for Moore.
Simpson said, “He (Gardner) walked down the street, and he’s pacing the floor waiting on Dereyaki to come down the street. You see Dereyaki walk down the street and when Dereyaki walks down the street you can see him and the suspect that shot and killed him. The suspect approaches him, can’t tell you what was said because there’s no audio. Next thing you know, Dereyaki appears to set something on the ground and that’s when the suspect begins to shoot him.”
Moore reportedly fell to the ground and as he was attempting to get up, Gardner fired several more times before running off east on Curtis Street.
“You see the suspect like running around in the video, start shooting him again and then run off,” Simpson said.
Simpson said Moore was hit several times in the upper body and face. However, he was reportedly able to give officers a description of his attacker before falling unconscious. Even though he did not know the gunman, he was able to describe him as a Black man with “dreads.”
She said Gardner told her that Moore asked him about the person that he was with, who “jacked” him for the car, right before he shot him. “He (Gardner) didn’t really give us a motive, he stated that he believed that the guy was getting ready to do something to him,” Simpson said.
Simpson called the death yet another “senseless killing.”
She called upon the residents to stop the violence.
“Put these guns down!”
She said that Moore was not even carrying a weapon of any kind, did not pose a threat and was apparently on his way home from work.
Simpson said she expects more charges to be filed, especially in conjunction with the carjacking and there is also a possibility that Gardner’s charge could be upgraded to capital murder.
Simpson said she called for help from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Marshals to assist in the investigation. She got expert help in the form of MBI Agent Chadwick Moore and U.S. Marshal Dewayne Stewart.
“They always come through for me when I contact the division or them, especially those two,” she said.
Simpson said she called them for assistance, and they did not hesitate.
Simpson said they put in extended time and effort and were determined to have the case solved and the suspect in custody within 48 hours and came in well under that goal.
“We knew that day who the suspect was, it was just a matter of putting a plan together and going to get him,” she said.
As of Monday, they were still reviewing the store’s video surveillance to find out exactly what took place in the parking lot. “My investigation is not over by a long shot,” she said.
Gardner is reportedly a current resident of Texas, but formerly of Indianola. Simpson said, “His mother said he hadn’t been in Indianola long, they had moved away to Texas.”
