metro police
Brian Dewakuku
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020 | 9:50 p.m.
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Surveillance cameras, Facebook Messenger logs and a whistleblower helped detectives identify a suspect accused of slaying two people inside a car last week in central Las Vegas.
Brian Dewakuku allegedly told someone in his neighborhood he killed the victims during a “bad drug deal,” showing the man a news article of the slayings, according to a Metro Police report.
Post-arrest, Dewakuku, 22, denied to detectives knowing anything about the July 29 shooting near McWilliams and Eastern avenues.
About 12:30 a.m. that day, officers found Dae’shawn King dead inside an SUV and his passenger, Edna Paola Reyes, mortally wounded, police said. She died at University Medical Center.
On a phone found near King, investigators found a conversation between Reyes and a “John Wall” in which they’d agreed to meet up for a “delivery,” police said.
The profile photo for “John Wall” matched surveillance footage from the crime scene and a nearby convenience store, police said.
Minutes before the shooting, a camera caught a man dressed in dark clothes, including a hooded sweatshirt with a California logo, tinkering on his phone and pacing back and forth in front of a house on McWilliams, police said.
The video shows the victims’ Toyota RAV4 pull alongside the man, police said. Seven minutes into the interaction, the SUV is seen driving away, and the man shoots at least two rounds into the back of the vehicle, according to the arrest report.
King crashed into a nearby wall, said police, noting that they’d found five spent 9mm rounds at the scene.
After the shooting, the gunman was seen walking toward a convenience store at 790 N. Eastern, where detectives got a clearer view of who they were looking for, police said. He also matched the online photos of the “John Wall” the victims were supposedly meeting.
Hours later, a man from Dewakuku’s neighborhood told police that the suspect had been cleaning a gun in his apartment earlier in the day and that Dewakuku admitted to the killings, police said.
Dewakuku, who matched the person caught on multiple cameras and the “John Wall” persona, was arrested at his apartment on two counts each of murder and firing into an occupied structure, Las Vegas Justice Court records show.
Additionally, he faces a count for illegally concealing a firearm after police found a gun in his pocket, which had its serial number scraped, according to the arrest report.
Dewakuku remains at the Clark County Detention Center without the possibility of bail. He’s next in court on Oct. 5.
