WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A man who was involved in a 2021 robbery in Winston-Salem has plead guilty to various charges, including second-degree murder, related to the incident, according to the Forsyth County District Attorney's Office.
Keanu D'Anthony Duncan, 18, did so at the Forsyth County Superior Court on Monday, just over three years after the incident in question, on Sept. 14, 2021. For his crimes, Forsyth County Resident Superior Court Judge David Hall sentenced Duncan to 216-272 months in the North Carolina Department of Corrections.
On that day, Winston-Salem Police officers responded to the Rolling Hills apartment complex in response to an alleged shooting. When they got there, they found Charles Edward Anderson Jr. dead in a unit suffering from a single gunshot wound.
According to the DA, the State's prosecution had evidence that, on Sept. 14, 2021, three people "rushed into the home" of Lateshia Benjamin, who was the mother of Anderson's children. The people wore masks and brandished hanguns.
The three people attempted to rob Anderson, but he was shot after trying to defend himself and his family from one of the intruders. The three then fled from the residence and were caught on video surveillance.
The Forsyth County District Attorney's Office said that after the shooting, it was discovered that Duncan, then 16, had posted a Snapchat story "approximately one hour before the shooting" that showed him and two other people with handguns in the parking lot of the Rolling Hills Apartments.
In the Snapchat story, the three people were wearing the same clothes to the people seen fleeing the scene on surveillance video, officials said.
When officers arrested Duncan, he had a 9mm Taurus handgun in his possession. Subsequent ballistics testing showed that the shell casings from inside the apartment where Anderson was killed matched the handgun.
The District Attorney's Office also said that Duncan was part of a robbery the previous week on Sept. 6, 2021, when he and two other men approached Dylan Jones in the Rolling Hills complex asking for a ride. According to officials, the three men assaulted Jones and took his Taurus 9mm handgun.
Officials said that while Duncan was incarcerated at the Forsyth County Detention Center, he was found in possession of two "makeshift cutting weapons" commonly referred to as shanks.
Duncan was initially charged as a juvenile, but his case was ultimately transferred to adult court for prosecution.
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