Rap lyrics aid Newport News police in double homicide arrest
Lyrics in a rap song aided police in charging a Newport News man with killing two people on a spring afternoon in 2007, court records show.
Antwain Steward, 22, is charged with two counts of murder, malicious wounding and firearms charges in the deaths of Brian Dean, 20, and Christopher Horton, 16. The two were gunned down May 10, 2007, at 23rd Street and Orcutt Avenue. Steward was charged with murder July 9, according to court documents.
Steward is a local rapper who goes by the rap name Twain Gotti. Police believe that Steward referenced the double homicides in one of his songs, according to an affidavit for search warrant filed in Newport News Circuit Court. An excerpt from Steward's rap song was included in the affidavit.
"Everybody saw when I [expletive] choked him. But nobody saw when I [expletive] smoked him, roped him, sharpened up the shank then I poked him…had me crackin up so I joked him, it is betweezy six feet ova, told ya [expletive] with my money I'll roast ya," the affidavit states.
Steward was 16 at the time of the homicides, court documents show. Witnesses told police that Horton and Steward fought prior to his shooting. A police investigation indicates that the shooting was gang related, according to the affidavit.
Horton was on his front porch with Dean, a friend from North Carolina, when a young man walked up to the house and opened fire with a handgun at 1:15 p.m, police said at the time of the homicide. Horton was shot in the chest and died at the scene. Dean was shot in the head. He died a day later after being taken off life support.
The case went cold after no leads or suspects were discovered after the shooting. The case was reassigned to robbery detective C. Nunez in November 2011 as part of the department's initiative to assign cold-case homicides to detectives from other departments.
Several of Steward's rap videos are posted on YouTube. One of the videos, titled "Hip full of gun," shows Steward rapping on the corner of 33rd Street and Marshall Avenue in front of Marshall Courts public housing complex. The video, which was uploaded in 2011, had 56,000 page views Monday. The video flips between Steward rapping in the street and clips from a videogame, which shows a gunman shooting people.
A video of the song police say he references the killings on is no longer available for viewing on YouTube.
Steward is in Newport News City Jail without bond. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 2.
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