COLUMBUS – Columbus police are asking a suspect they believe pulled the trigger in the murders of four people to surrender peacefully.
Meanwhile, the Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the 16-year-old charged in the quadruple homicide in South Linden held a gun on five people in the basement where a second person shot them, according to juvenile court records that provide more details into what happened.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
Four of the people — Michael Ballour, 41; Daniel Sharp, 26; Angela Harrison, 35; and Tyajah Nelson, 18 — died in the aqua-colored, two-story house on E. Hudson early Saturday morning. They presumably felt helpless and terrified as the events unfolded.
A fifth victim, a woman whom police aren’t identifying, miraculously survived. She was shot in the head, court records show.
A witness told police the woman run out of the house into the street screaming, “They are dead, they are dead! Oh my God, they are dead! I’m shot.” Police found her bloodied in a nearby alley; she directed officers to the basement where the four others still lay, records show.
The woman is currently under police protection while Columbus police search for the second suspect.
Sgt. Dave Sicilian of the homicide unit says Wade’s accomplice must understand that police will ultimately find him and help prosecute him.
The investigation is “very sensitive right now. It’s fragile,” Sicilian said at a press conference at police headquarters Tuesday afternoon.
“We’re doing everything we have with the resources we have to protect this surviving victim” from that person.
Jordyn D. Wade, 16, has been charged with four delinquency counts of murder and five delinquency counts of kidnapping. A prosecutor has asked that he be tried as an adult.
Sicilian said the crime was related to drug activity at the house. Sicilian did not identify the suspect.