Details of plot to murder woman are revealed in unsealed affidavit
New London police say man ordered son’s mom killed from behind bars
On Nov. 24, 2019, at 11: 28 p. m., a bullet pierced the second- floor window of an apartment at 168 Third Ave. in New London. It traveled through a bedroom where three young girls were sleeping and lodged into the wall of an adjacent bedroom.
Nobody was injured. Around the same time, security cameras operated by the Londonberry Gardens apartment complex showed three men in the area, two of them covering their faces with their hooded sweatshirts.
Police said they identified and arrested all three men, including the alleged shooter, Sakye Reels-Felder, 20, of Mashantucket, 19- year- old Kion Wilbur of New London and an 18-year-old from New London who is not identified in court documents because he was a juvenile at the time of the incident.
Two others have also been charged in connection with the alleged murder plot.
Detectives say the shooting was
ordered by 26- year- old city native Shaquan Lee- Seales, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for shooting and killing innocent bystander Gilberto Olivencia during a drug dispute in December 2015.
The intended targets were the mother of Lee- Seales' son, Nicole Rivera-Ramos, and her current boyfriend, Demetrius Watley. They lived six doors away from the Londonberry Gardens apartment that was hit.
An arrest warrant affidavit recently unsealed in New London Superior Court indicates that, in a series of calls from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Lee- Seales ordered the shooting because he was upset that Rivera-Ramos was letting Watley tell Lee-Seales' son he has two fathers, and was not taking the child to visit Lee-Seales more often.
Lee-Seales said during the recorded phone calls that he didn't care if his son was in the apartment, and that he would show Rivera-Ramos how evil he could be.
“You wanna keep saying that's that (racial slur)'s son, then it is what it is at that point,” he said, according to police. “I don't give a (expletive) no more.”
Lee- Seales was charged last month with conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder and accessory to incite injury to a person or property. He has pleaded not guilty and has a court date in January 2021.
Reels- Felder was arrested on the Mashantucket Tribal Reservation in September and charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, illegal discharge of a firearm, first-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor. He is being held in lieu of $1.2 million. He has pleaded not guilty and is next due in court on Nov. 2.
Wilbur was charged Sept. 8 with conspiracy to commit murder and is being held in lieu of $ 1 million. He is due back in court in January 2021.
Lee-Seales' now 18-year-old brother, who is not identified by police because he was a juvenile at the time of the shooting, has also been charged. The warrant affidavit indicates he was being held at the Manson Youth Institution on unrelated charges.
Nitasia Sutton, 20, of New London is charged with accessory to attempted murder, attempted first-degree assault and accessory to incite injury to a person or property. She's being held in lieu of $1 million at the Janet S. York Correctional Institution and is due in court on Dec. 21.
The Department of Correction was monitoring LeeSeales' phone calls and mails as part of a violent crime task force initiative, and had advised him in May 2019 that they could be reviewing his phone calls and mail, according to the affidavit, which was written by New London police Detective Justin Lawrie.
During some of the calls, Lee-Seales used the PIN numbers of other inmates and spoke in code, the warrant says.
Minutes before the shooting, police said a security camera operated by Londonberry Gardens apartments captured three men walking on Fourth Avenue, which runs parallel to Third. The footage showed a man police later identified as Reels-Felder walking through a courtyard from Fourth Avenue to a spot on Third Avenue where police believe the bullet originated, then running across the same courtyard in the direction of Phillips Street and entering a vehicle.
Around the same time, another camera captured what appeared to be a crack appearing in the second-floor window at 168 Third Ave. and a light going on inside the bedroom, where three young females had been sleeping.
Lee-Seales spoke with Sutton and his younger brother during the phone calls from prison. In one call, the brother told Lee-Seales he had instructed Reels-Felder, whom they referred to as “Young boy NBA,” to do the shooting, telling him it would be “a good look on the résumé.”
After the shooting, Lee-Seales stated he wished he was home so that he could teach Reels-Felder “how to move” now that he knows what he is capable of.
In February 2020, a correctional lieutenant told police that Lee-Seales was continuing to hold a grudge against Watley. On May 14, 2020, the lieutenant informed police that Lee- Seales had written to his brother at the Manson Youth Institution telling him to have someone take care of Watley, whose alias is “Dog Dog.” The brother contacted Wilbur and told him to “put the dog to sleep.”
Police said they went to Watley's residence to warn him about the most recent threats against his life, and that while a detective was standing on the street, they saw Wilbur drive by Watley's residence. They said they obtained security camera footage of the car driving by, but when stopped later by police, Wilbur denied involvement with the November shooting and said the last time he was on Third Avenue was “probably never.”