Dad killed week before twins’ birthday
WEST PALM BEACH — Shortly after Kyanna Jones and Kevin Stevens’ twins were born last year, a nurse at Bethesda Hospital East in Boynton Beach offered to watch the girls so the parents could sleep.
“Before I could answer, he said, ‘No,’ ” Jones recalled.
Stevens was fiercely protective of his three children, Jones said. In addition to the twin girls, who turn 1 today, Stevens had a 6-year-old son. He would have done anything for those kids, said Stevens’ sister, Aurielle Edwards.
Stevens, a 36-year-old barber, was killed Saturday morning not far from where he was living in West Palm Beach, his family said. His death marks the city’s eighth killing since January, according to a Palm Beach Post database.
City police arrested his
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To contribute to the GoFundMe account for Kevin Stevens, go online to www.GoFundMe. com/Kevin-Stevens.
alleged killer, Daron Breon Harrell, early Sunday at a Lantana motel.
However, it’s still unclear what led him to kill Stevens, an Orlando native who spent the past year living in West Palm Beach.
City police records indicate Stevens planned to meet Harrell that morning in the 700 block of Fifth Street. Harrell arrived first and waited in a navy blue Lexus SUV with a woman. It is unclear why the men decided to get together.
Stevens arrived shortly before 10:30 a.m. in a silver Honda Civic. Harrell approached the open front passenger-side window, and the men began to argue, a witness told police.
Harrell, 33 and from Riviera Beach, had a gun in his hand, a witness said. Multiple people told police Stevens didn’t have anything in his hands.
Harrell reportedly fired three times, killing Stevens, a police report said.
The dying man slammed on the Civic’s gas pedal and crashed into a silver Lexus SUV parked about 50 feet away. He was dead when rescue crews arrived.
Harrell fled in the blue Lexus, according to witnesses, but authorities traced him to the Super 8 on Hypoluxo Road, just east of North Seacrest Boulevard, where they arrested him at 5:30 the next morning.
Harrell made his first court appearance on the murder charge Tuesday. Judge Dina Keever-Agrama ordered he stay behind bars without the possibility of posting bail while his case moves through the court system.
Keever-Agrama also ruled that Harrell have no contact with Stevens’ family or any witnesses, including the woman with whom he arrived in the Lexus. The Post is not naming the woman because she does not face charges in Stevens’ death.
Edwards, Stevens’ sister, said the family isn’t sure what led up to his killing. They do not know Harrell, she said.
She last spoke with her brother Friday night over the phone. The barber, who frequently worked out of clients’ homes, spent hours talking to his sister about plans for his daughters’ first birthday party the next week.
He seemed happy, Edwards said. The whole family was planning to get together to celebrate his little girls.
Stevens’ family set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for funeral expenses. Any extra money that is raised will go toward his children.