Details emerge in 2011 cold case murder of Old Dominion student
New details in the 2011 murder of an Old Dominion University student at an off-campus house emerged during a court hearing Wednesday in Norfolk Circuit Court for one of four men charged in the case.
The information was revealed during a bond hearing for 28-year-old Rashad Dooley. Norfolk Circuit Court Judge Michelle Atkins denied Dooley’s request for bail.
Dooley and Kwaume Edwards, Javon Doyle, and Ahmad Watson, all of Newport News, were arrested in August and face murder, burglary and firearm charges.
The arrests came a little more than 10 years after 20-year-old Christopher Cummings was gunned down in a house he shared with at least one other person on West 42nd Street
in Norfolk. Cummings was majoring in criminal justice at ODU and was a nephew of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore.
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Cynthia Collard said Cummings was a “smalltime marijuana dealer and full-time student” at the time of his death. He also was friends with Watson, one of the men charged in the case, she said.
Shortly before the June 10, 2011, shooting, Watson and two others went to Cummings’ house, and one of the men tried to rob him at gunpoint, the prosecutor said. Cummings fought the man off and told them to leave, Collard said. Watson apologized, and the men left in a red compact car.
Early the next morning, Cummings and his roommate were asleep when the roommate heard someone force their way in and run up the stairs. The roommate next heard two gunshots and was shot when he opened his bedroom door. He survived his injuries.
Defense attorney Eric Korslund called the evidence against his client “lacking.” Collard argued it was strong.
Dooley had a red Honda Civic that matched the description of the car seen at Cummings’ house shortly before the shootings, she said. While in jail on another charge, Dooley admitted to another inmate that he drove the others to Cummings’ house the morning he was shot, she said.
Texts between the suspects also showed them discussing the shooting afterward, and all four of their cell phones pinged off a nearby tower at the time it happened, she said.
Collard also pointed to Dooley’s lengthy criminal record, and his certification as a member of the MFG gang, as reason not to release him on bail.