Man, 28, charged in death of teen

Prosecutors expect 2 others linked to killing to be arraigned in Troy

An indictment charging a Brooklyn felon with seconddegree murder was unsealed Tuesday morning in Rensselaer County Court and a short time later New York City police captured an alleged accomplice in the January killing of 16year-old Anthony M. Christopher Jr., according to court paperwork and the attorneys involved with the criminal case.

Rensselaer County Court Judge Debra Young unsealed the indictment Tuesday against William Webb, who appeared in court with his public defender, Arthur Frost.

Officials said the second suspect was being brought to Troy and will be arraigned Wednesday on a second-degree murder charge.

A third suspect in the death of Christopher is locked up at the Schenectady County jail, said Jackie Mcdonough, chief of staff for the Rensselaer County district attorney’s office. He’s likely to face charges later this week, she said.

The charging document alleges that Webb, 28, caused the teen’s death on Jan. 5 at 860 River St.

Court records do not list Webb’s hometown, but outside court Mcdonough said she believed he is from Brooklyn.

Prosecutors will now begin the process of sharing evidence with Webb’s attorney.

In court, Assistant District Attorney Cheryl Mcdermott said that the “discovery is quite voluminous.”

She told the judge that Webb has two prior convictions, has absconded before, and has no ties to the area.

For those reasons and Webb’s “extensive criminal history,” the judge sent him back to the county jail without bail.

Afterward, Frost said he didn’t have a lot of information about the case except that there were two co-defendants who had yet to be charged.

An online obituary indicates that Anthony was taken away from his family “due to gun violence.”

The death notice states he was born in Hudson to Amber Brown and Anthony M. Christopher Sr. and attended the Troy High School Sunset Program because a “structured and formal education was not necessarily for him.”

The obit said Christopher, an aspiring rap artist and entrepreneur, was known to family and those in the music industry, as “Tookie,” “Big Don” and “Ant Daklikka.”

“His loving memory will live on in all of those who got the chance to know him during this short period here on earth as one who could make a room light up, for his love to eat and smoke, for always being on the phone with the girls, being fun filled, loving, caring and loyal, a genius, an inspiration to so many, known as a class clown and a practical joker and would steal your chips or your socks but most of all for being his mom’s best friend,” said the obit.

Police said at least two armed suspects burst into a first-floor apartment on River Street and Glen Avenue and shot and killed Christopher.

At the time police said a second 16-year-old boy, who didn’t live in the apartment, was wounded in the leg. Others escaped through a rear door on Glen Avenue.

A Troy police spokesman previously said that the suspected shooters and the occupants of the apartment “all had connections.”

Over the past few years, Glen Avenue and the area around it has been the site of other shootings, some of them fatal.