Police: Suspect driven from scene

CLOVIS — The suspect still sought by police in connection with the Sept. 5 homicide at the Clovis Apartments was driven away from the crime scene minutes after the fatal shooting of 30-year old David McDonald, according to court documents.

Darryl Turner II, 30, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the incident and was still at large going into the weekend, said Clovis Police Department Sgt. Adriana Munoz.

Police responded around 2:30 a.m. Sept. 5 to a report of a gunshot wound victim at Plains Regional Medical Center, later identified as McDonald. Almost an hour later, medical personnel “stopped all life saving measures” and declared him dead, said an affidavit for arrest warrant filed Sept. 8.

McDonald was shot in the right shoulder, but medical staff said “the bullet went through his shoulder, had punctured his right lung and stopped right where the heart was.”

Two eyewitnesses spoke to police the day of the shooting — said to have occurred outside Building 4 of the complex on the 1000 Block of Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard near apartments 50 and 52 — and identified Turner as the triggerman.

One of them said “she looked the shooter in the eyes after the shooting.” Another witness standing next to her at the time confirmed her sighting. Both told police they first recognized Turner as a friend of one of the apartment residents.

That friend told police “she was sleeping in her apartment when she (was) suddenly awakened by someone banging on her front door very loudly.”

That person was Turner, she said, who told her “hurry up I need a ride right now.” Together they got into her car and she dropped him off close to the residence of one of his cousins on Piersall Street, almost four miles away and south of town. When she returned she found police crowded outside her apartment.

“I am sorry but these people kept picking on me,” said Turner’s last reported message to his friend, which she saw shortly after returning to the scene.

Video from a camera about 50 yards from the shooting show McDonald pull up in his car near Building 4. Some time passes — documents did not specify how long — and the motion-activated camera then shows a man police identify as McDonald leaving the area.

At first he is walking, then he looks back and “ducks immediately and takes off running.”

“You also see a muzzle flash from a firearm in around the area (McDonald) was looking. You see (McDonald) run and fall to the ground while others are ... running from the scene.”

A duo resembling Turner and his friend are seen leaving in her vehicle approximately two minutes later.

Turner’s friend who drove him from the scene is not charged in connection with the shooting.

CPD asks anyone with knowledge of Turner’s whereabouts to contact them at 575-769-1921.