The Baltimore City teen charged with killing a 14-year-old girl said the fatal shooting was accidental, according to charging documents.
“It was a mistake,” Charles Jakes, 18, said Monday at Union Memorial Hospital with Baltimore City Police Officer Alfredo Santiago standing next to him.
“I didn?t mean to kill Shorty.”
At 9:12 a.m. Monday, police responded to a call for a shooting on the 1900 block of North Patterson Park Avenue in East Baltimore, where they found Shaundretta Griffin suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.
Griffin was lying in a bed in the basement, naked from the waist down, according to charging documents.
Jakes, Griffin?s boyfriend, also was in the house suffering from a gunshot wound to his right thumb, police said.
Griffin was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Annete Hill, Jakes? mother, told police she was in the kitchen when she heard a single gunshot come from the basement.
Hill rushed downstairs to find Griffin bleeding from a head wound and her son saying, “I didn?t mean to kill her,” police said.
After being discharged from the hospital, Jakes refused to talk with homicide detectives, who then charged him with first-degree murder Tuesday.
Jakes has had several other run-ins with law enforcement, court records show.
In a waiver hearing Feb. 28, Baltimore City prosecutors recommended Jakes be tried as an adult in several cases, including charges of burglary, assault and bringing a knife to school.
He had been committed to the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice for more than a year, returning to Baltimore City from a facility in Ohio in January, court records show.
Indicted by a Baltimore City grand jury March 6, Jakes was held on a $1 million bail until April 2, when he pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree burglary and second-degree assault and was sentenced to time served.
He had been out of jail for less than two weeks when Griffin was fatally shot.
