Dispute with woman outside home preceded fatal shooting
WEST PALM BEACH — Jabari Blye hitched a ride late Sept. 2 to see a woman at a home on 44th Street.
He arrived to find two people in her car, according to West Palm Beach police records. He insisted on knowing who they were.
He leaned onto the hood of her car and looked inside before reportedly firing two shots through the windshield, killing the front passenger, 18-year-old Raequan Haywood.
Blye, 23, of Riviera Beach, was arrested Monday morning on charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, shooting into a vehicle and possessing a weapon as a convicted felon.
Judge Dina Keever-Agrama ordered Blye to remain in the Palm Beach County Jail without the possibility of posting bond.
Records suggest that witness cooperation — the lack of which is a common hurdle for law enforcement — was key to securing Blye’s arrest.
Most of the investigations into the city’s 22 reported homicides this year and the 28 reported in 2017 remain open without any arrests having been made.
Witnesses to the Sept. 2 killing told police that Haywood, a Riviera Beach native who was affectionately known as “Nugi,” was with the woman and another man that Sunday night. They drove together in the woman’s car to a friend’s home on 44th Street, west of Australian Avenue.
The woman stopped the car and went into the house. Blye showed up in a red Chevrolet Impala and directed the driver to drop him off behind the woman’s car.
Blye approached the woman, who was coming out of the house, and the two began to argue. She ducked into the driver’s seat of her car. Haywood was in the front passenger seat. The other man was in the back.
As she began to drive away, Blye reportedly leaned on the hood of her car and opened fire. Haywood sustained multiple gunshot wounds, according to authorities.
Police found bullet holes in the back of the car as well, “which would indicate that Blye was shooting at the vehicle as it was fleeing the scene,” a detective wrote.
Blye reportedly ran back to the Impala he’d ridden in to 44th Street.
“I flashed out. Whoever TRACK THE
HOMICIDES
See an online database of confirmed homicides in Palm Beach County since 2009 at www.PalmBeachPost.com/ homicides
was in the car with her I think I shot him,” Blye reportedly told the person driving that car.
The woman rushed a mile east to St. Mary’s Medical Center. She and the man in the backseat carried Haywood from the car to the hospital where he died.
Police didn’t learn of the shooting until Haywood was brought to St. Mary’s.
Palm Beach County court records show that over the last seven years, Blye has been arrested multiple times on violent offenses, often from incidents reportedly involving a gun.
He spent nearly four years in state custody for burglary, cocaine and weapons-related offenses.
Police records don’t elaborate on how Blye knew the woman whose car he is accused of shooting at.