Four men charged with murder after botched drug deal in Fairview
On a hot and muggy Saturday night in Fairview, three men ran into a Fourth Street apartment, brandishing 9mm and .32-caliber handguns, intent on robbing the man inside, records show.
Within seconds, three gunshots rang out from Apartment B.
A little more than an hour later, police arrived to find David Duque-Soto, 23, dead, lying on the ground with two 9mm shell casings and one .32-caliber shell casing near his body, records show.
The armed robbery that turned fatal was the violent climax to a drug deal that was never completed and a haphazard plan by four suspects to rob Duque-Soto, according to court records. A fifth man escaped to West New York, where he told city police of the four suspects’ plans.
The five men were arrested Monday night, after one testified and another was pulled over still wearing the clothes he wore on the night of Soto’s death, records show.
On Monday, the four suspects involved in the shooting and the getaway — Lexie Burke, 20, Carlos Juan Burgos, 19, David Daniel Martinez, 19, and Raul Alexander Torres, 19 — were arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including a murder charge for each. All four men were being held in the Bergen County Jail as of Tuesday morning.
The fifth man, Dylan Rodriguez, was charged with hindering an investigation but was released on Monday, according to court records.
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Arrest records lay out a timeline that started with an attempted drug deal and ended in a fatal attempted robbery in a house just feet away from a public school.
Sometime before 7 p.m. Saturday, the five men visited the Fourth Street apartment in the hope of buying drugs, records show. Although they left empty-handed, Burke, Burgos, Martinez and Torres hatched a plan to return with guns and rob Duque-Soto in the same apartment, according to testimony from Rodriguez.
At about 6:42 p.m. Saturday, surveillance footage showed Burke, Burgos and Torres returning to the apartment, entering through a side door, while Martinez waited in the getaway car, records show. About 70 seconds later, after three gunshots were fired inside the apartment, the three men allegedly exited the house and got into the Toyota Corolla, fleeing the scene.
The details of who shot Duque-Soto and who was merely an accessory grow muddled, with police cobbling together evidence through surveillance footage and testimony from Burke and Rodriguez.
Burgos and Torres both brought guns with them to the armed robbery and each shot Duque-Soto, Burke told police, according to arrest records. When police found Duque-Soto, he had multiple gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma to his head.
While searching Rodriguez’s North Bergen home, police found a gun hidden in the attic: a 9mm handgun. Burgos had given Rodriguez the gun to hide after using it to “shoot someone,” Rodriguez said in his testimony.
Burgos, Burke and Torres have detention hearings scheduled for Friday. Martinez will appear Wednesday.