A 19-year-old Chantilly woman will go on trial for murder this fall — the same day her boyfriend is sentenced for his part in the crime.
The woman is Sheena Latoya Bailey of 4139 Chantilly Lace Court in the Chantilly Mews community. And both she and boyfriend Ira Anderson, 20, of Manassas, are accused of killing a Woodbridge man, Jan. 1, in Fredericksburg.
THE VICTIM, Anthony King Jr., 27, was shot once in the head and once in the arm. According to Fredericksburg police spokesman Jim Shelhorse, Anderson pulled the trigger and Bailey allegedly drove the getaway car.
A fight had broken out outside the Club Royale, a popular dance club in Fredericksburg, just prior to the tragedy, so police rushed to the scene to break it up. The new year had just begun — it was shortly before 2 a.m. — and nearly 100 people were either brawling, brandishing weapons or watching the melee.
But the shooting didn't take place there. It occurred instead in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven, about a block away, where the crowd had headed after the brawl. Police said tempers flared again and emotions boiled over after Bailey and Anderson arrived, and King was fatally wounded.
Shelhorse said neither Bailey nor Anderson ever left their car, and they drove off quickly after the shots were fired. He said King had been standing at the vehicle's passenger side at the time. Afterward, the critically wounded man was medivaced to Inova Fairfax Hospital and died there that afternoon.
Meanwhile, said Shelhorse, the couple fled in a black SUV with Virginia tags, and police found it later in Bailey's driveway. Besides that, people at the site of the shooting were able to identify her. "We got her name and address from people at the scene," he said.
Fairfax County police arrested Bailey and Anderson when they left her house and got into the SUV. Both were charged with first-degree murder, plus use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and they were incarcerated in Fredericksburg.
On Feb. 16 in Fredericksburg General District Court, Bailey's firearm charge was dropped, and her murder charge was certified to the grand jury. Both of Anderson's charges were sent to the grand jury.
The pair was indicted on Feb. 27, and they were slated to be tried together on June 28. However, on that date, Bailey's case was severed from Anderson's and continued to Oct. 4 for her own jury trial.
Anderson's trial went forward, as scheduled, and lasted for three days. At the end of it, the jury found him guilty of the lesser — but still quite serious — charge of second-degree murder, as well as the firearm offense. Judge John Scott then set his sentencing for Oct. 4.