Two teenagers tracked down a pair of Austin men and confronted them October 1, after a botched gun deal in which the victims had taken an AR-15 shotgun without paying.
One of the teens, Caylon Goins, 18, of Round Rock, opened fire, killing 20-year-old Donato Ward and injuring his 25-year-old cousin, Keivonta Coleman, according to an arrest affidavit.
The shooting happened in a parking lot at the Limestone Canyon Apartments, a roughly 20-minute drive from a Pflugerville bowling alley where the gun deal had gone down.
Goins, using Snapchat, had connected with a prospective buyer for an AR-style shotgun earlier that day. He arranged to sell the firearm outside the Spare Time bowling alley on Dessau Road.
Leaving his home in Round Rock, Goins arrived at his Pflugerville destination at 3:21 p.m., according to phone records obtained by search warrant.
The teen didn’t know that he was walking into a setup.
The would-be buyer, Sylvester Idehen Jr., 19, had been cruising town with two friends earlier that afternoon when he came up with the idea to obtain a gun from a seller on Snapchat.
Coleman and Ward, the two cousins who ended up getting shot, agreed to the plan. But they had no intention of paying for the gun. Coleman, the surviving shooting victim, told police that Idehen “came up with the plan to meet with the seller, take the gun and run back to the vehicle… then they would leave without paying,” the affidavit says.
Things didn’t go quite as planned for either teen — buyer or seller. At the bowling alley parking lot, Idehen, known to his friends as “Scully,” got out of his vehicle and went over to Goins’ car, while Coleman and Ward waited in the car.
According to Coleman’s testimony, Idehen came back to his car with the shotgun, put it in his car, then told Coleman and Ward that he was going back to speak with the seller. There were two more guns that he would try to obtain, Idehen said, per Coleman.
While the two teens were still talking, Coleman and Ward drove away with the gun — and Idehen’s car — leaving the 19-year-old buyer stranded in a parking lot with the 18-year-old seller. Coleman later told police that he and his cousin got nervous after seeing a police vehicle drive through the area, which is why they left without their friend.
In the meantime, the two teens, perhaps feeling double-crossed, ended up pursuing Coleman and Ward together, according to cell phone data obtained by search warrant.
The affidavit says, “Coleman gave Idehen their location” — presumably by phone or SMS — “and Idehen led Goins directly to them.” Phone records put Idehen in the vicinity of the murder, and surveillance footage links Goins’ car to the location.
The affidavit says, “Idehen’s phone records show him to be in the area of 12118 Walnut Park Xing at about 4:30 p.m. The 9-1-1 call came in at about 4:35 p.m. Idehen’s phone records appeared to show him leaving the area where the shooting occurred at about 4:41 pm.,” the affidavit says.
The document doesn’t explain why Coleman gave Idehen their location. Speaking to police at the hospital, however, he said that after giving Idehen their location he and Ward grew suspicious of their friend. They backed into a parking spot at the Limestone Canyon Apartments and waited. They “felt like ‘Scully’ (Idehen) might be setting them up for something.”
Soon after parking, a white sedan — suspected to belong to Goins — pulled in front of their vehicle. The driver got out and fired three shots, striking Ward in the head and Coleman in the shoulder.
The police investigator who wrote the affidavit said he believed that Goins’ intention was to block the two men from leaving “so that he could retrieve his gun and Idehen could get his car back.” However, the shooter left without retrieving the AR-15 shotgun from the car, and the car was left abandoned, having crashed into a garage after Ward was shot.
After the shooting, Goins and Idehen drove together to College Station, where Idehen had family, according to the affidavit.
U.S. Marshals, acting on a warrant, arrested Goins in Round Rock on October 22 on a first-degree murder warrant. Travis County inmate records show that he was booked at the Travis County Jail with bond set at $750,000.
