Alexandria police have arrested two suspects and charged them with robbery but police are investigating whether they were also involved with a homicide that happened just before the robbery.
Antowaun Lynch, 20, of Fairmount Heights, Md., and another man who has not yet been positively identified, were charged on Friday with robbing an Alexandria woman in her home on S. Lee Street at gunpoint. Police apprehended the two suspects in the 300 block of N. St. Asaph Street after Fairfax County police pursued them to the 900 block of S. Alfred Street.
“Fairfax County police saw a black Subaru on the George Washington Parkway and began following it because it matched the description of a car that we were looking for in connection with a homicide that had occurred that evening,” said Amy Bertsch, a spokesperson for the Alexandria Police Department. “Also, the car had been reported stolen in the District on Sept. 12. Fairfax County police followed the car into Alexandria and the suspects abandoned the vehicle on S. Alfred Street.”
An off-duty police officer who was unaware of both the homicide and the robbery saw two suspects behaving suspiciously and called police dispatch. When informed of the two crimes and the police pursuit, he assisted in apprehending the suspects.
The robbery victim, a 35-year-old Alexandria woman, was forced, at gunpoint, to enter her home and give the suspects money and other items. They left her S. Lee home in a black Subaru.
Fifteen minutes prior to the robbery, Musharaf Shah, a 47-year-old resident of Alexandria had just delivered a pizza to the Firehook bakery at 105 S. Union Street. When he was returning to his car in the 200 block of N. Fayette Street, he was approached by a suspect.
“We don’t know whether the suspect got money from him or exactly what happened but something went terribly wrong and Mr. Shah was shot in the chest,” Bertsch said. Shah was pronounced dead at Inova Fairfax Hospital one half hour after he was shot.
At least one witness saw a man get into a black Subaru, which was parked nearby, and drive away.
Because of the similarity of the descriptions of the vehicles involved in both cases, police believe that there may be a connection. “We have a lot of physical evidence and two crime scenes,” Bertsch said. “Our investigation is continuing.”