18-year-old indicted in 2022 fatal shooting of Deontay Edwards

A grand jury indicted Tyshaun Williams, 18, for the July shooting death 19-year-old Deontay Edwards, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced Thursday.

Williams is accused of killing Edwards in a drive-by shooting on July 30 in East Baltimore and shooting at three other people who were with Edwards that day. He is charged with first- and second-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, armed carjacking and related offenses.

The group was standing on a street in Broadway East when Williams shot at them from a car he had stolen at gunpoint earlier that month, according to prosecutors. The group attempted to get into a car and flee, but Williams followed them.

He was “shooting at the car as they drove, ultimately causing them to crash into a parked car near the intersection of Oliver Street,” prosecutors said. Williams had “one or more” co-conspirators in the car with him who were also shooting at the group, firing at least 25 rounds as they tried to flee, according to court documents.

When Edwards tried to run away on foot, “he was shot in the back and killed,” prosecutors say. Another member of the group was shot multiple times but survived. Prosecutors did not offer a motive for the shooting.

Williams is represented by a public defender, according to court records. A spokesperson for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender declined to comment.

The jury also indicted Williams over his alleged participation in multiple carjackings, prosecutors said.

Edwards was one of 114 high-school age teenagers shot in Baltimore in 2022.

Edwards, who was known to those close to him as “Boochum Butt” or “Lil Dee,” loved to wheelie his bike “all the way down a city block,” an obituary posted to the Calvin B. Scruggs Funeral Home said. He could fix up any type of bike, and could even build bikes from scratch.

He loved to rap and was competitive when playing dice. “If he beat you once I guarantee he’d beat you twice!” the obituary said.

He went to a Baltimore City Public School and found work washing cars and selling water, it said.

cadence.quaranta@thebaltimorebanner.com