Witness: Teen ‘kissed his gun’ after fatally shooting Washington woman
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
Juan Worthy III is escorted from the Washington County Courthouse following his preliminary hearing Friday on charges stemming from the May 11 shooting death of Kristin Barfield in Washington.
Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter
Yellow police tape blocks off 219 Ridge Ave. in Washington as city police investigate the May 11 shooting death of Kristin Barfield.
Allen
Juan Worthy III gleefully “kissed his gun” after the 16-year-old allegedly shot and killed a woman outside her Washington home in May, a witness who was with him during the drive-by shooting testified at his preliminary hearing Friday.
Amari Miller testified that he was riding in the car with Worthy and two others when he saw the teen fire multiple shots at a Ridge Avenue house that killed 58-year-old Kristin Barfield while she was sitting on her front porch May 11.
Miller was in the front passenger seat at the time and said that he thinks Worthy’s intended target was Trey Willis, who was walking up the steps to his mother’s house, but he missed and struck Barfield instead.
“There he is! That’s him right there!” Miller remembered hearing Worthy tell the driver, Brandon Ronald Allen, before firing five or six shots at Willis.
Allen, 31, swerved closer to the house and also had a handgun he was attempting to fire but it jammed, Miller said.
“I can check that off my list,” Miller recalled Worthy saying immediately after the shooting.
“He was hyped,” Miller testified. “He was happy.”
Worthy III, Allen, and another person in the car, 15-year-old Tyriq Xavier Moss, all were ordered to stand trial on homicide and related charges during the two-hour preliminary hearing before District Judge Kelly Stewart in Washington County Central Court. Worthy and Allen, who are jailed without bond, appeared at the hearing shackled and wearing prison jumpsuits.
Moss also attended the hearing while free on $50,000 unsecured bond. Miller, 19, who has not been charged in connection with the killing, testified that Moss did nothing but sit in the back seat of the vehicle while Worthy leaned over Moss and fired the weapon.
“He wasn’t doing anything,” Miller said of Moss. “He couldn’t do anything. He was just sitting there.”
After the shooting, Miller testified that Allen drove them to a wooded area in Mt. Pleasant Township near Hickory in order to hide the vehicle. After they stashed the car and began walking away, Worthy was “overly happy and playing with his gun,” Miller testified.
“I told him to throw away his gun,” Miller said because Worthy’s behavior scared him as he handled the firearm. “He even kissed his gun, from my point of view.”
Washington police Lt. Jack Hancock corroborated that testimony and said investigators found a hunter’s trail camera with photographs showing Worthy “looking at the gun and grinning” while they were walking through the woods. Worthy was the only person holding a firearm in the photographs as Miller could be seen directing him to get rid of the gun. Hancock said the black and purple handgun they later recovered in the woods matched what Worthy was seen holding in the photographs.
Allen and another man, Javarr Thomas, were charged the day after Barfield’s killing. However, all charges against Thomas were dropped after investigators learned he was not in the vehicle during the shooting.
Miller did not immediately report to police his eyewitness account of the incident, but he came forward to investigators about a month later and told them that Worthy fired the fatal shots. Moss was charged May 19 while Worthy, who is now 17, was arrested June 14.
While the motive for the shooting is not clear, Miller testified Worthy told him that Willis had made comments about the teen’s mother at some point. Willis attended the hearing and sat in the gallery with many of Barfield’s other relatives, but he did not testify.
Worthy and Allen, both of Washington, were ordered to stand trial on charges of homicide and two counts each of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy, along with an additional charge of carrying a firearm without a license. Moss, of North Franklin, faces the same counts, except for the firearm charge against him that Stewart dismissed during the hearing. Worthy and Moss are both charged as adults in the case.