Testimony: Man charged in quadruple shooting ‘felt unsafe’ as group sat outside his front door
Man believed men may have been linked to prior beating
Friends of a Pontiacman facing 10 felony charges for a quadruple shooting on Aug. 26 say he was nervous and upset that night about a group of men sitting on his porch — men possibly linked to a beating he had suffered years earlier.
That evening, three of those men would be dead and a fourth seriously injured, all shot with the same 9mm handgun.
It wasn’t long before Kenneth Durell Clay, 32, turned himself in to the Oakland
County Sheriff’s Office, and told a detective that he’d stashed the gun at his brother’s house.
Testifying at a preliminary exam Monday in Pontiac’s 50th District Court, Demetrius Brady said Clay had reached out to himthat evening, prior to the shooting, looking for support from a friend. “He said he was uncomfortable, and felt unsafe and needed someone to talk to” because of the group right outside his front door. At least one of those men, Brady said, had been involved in an assault he suffered about six years ago, according to Clay. Brady said he drove by the apartment and saw “six or seven” men near the front door of Clay’s home, where he lived with his girlfriend, Deja McCauley, and their two young children.
McCauley also testified that Clay was rattled by the group on the porch. She said she looked out the window and thought she saw the men “passing a gun around,” and then called police after Clay took a pistol from their upstairs bedroomand walked downstairs.
“Iwas scared...I told him to think about his kids,” she said.
Still upstairs and on the phone with police, McCauley said, she heard gunshots. She again peered out the window and saw one man on the ground, holding his chest. The rest of the group and Clay were out of her view, she said.
Another witness testified that she was hanging with the group outside the apartment when “a shadowy figure” opened the front door, yelled some expletives and started shooting. She hit the ground and then ran off. She then came back and sawone of the victims on the grass, “just laying there...he wasn’t moving,” she said, sobbing.
Killed were Dominique Williams, 28, Kenrick Lanehart, 39 and Montray Morris, 29, all of Pontiac. One other man survived after being hit by the gunfire.
Clay is facing three counts of first-degree premeditated homicide, one count of assaultwith intent tomurder, and five firearms charges.
At the conclusion ofMonday’s preliminary exam, Judge Michael Martinez ruled there was enough evidence for the case to advance to Oakland County Circuit Court. Clay will be arraigned there Oct. 21 before JudgeMichaelWarren.