More of the sordid details relating to the kidnapping murder of Nabil Nazir Attia Shehata have emerged.
Shehata, 53 of Barstow, was reported missing by his family on October 12. His body was found in the open desert near Highway 58 on October 19. Shortly thereafter, his vehicle was found to be in the possession of Bruce Lamont Fuller and Inor Montrell Robinson.
While authorities do not believe that Fuller or Robinson were directly involved in Shehata’s death, they have been charged with, in Fuller’s case, harboring or aiding a felony suspect/accessory and buying or receiving a stolen vehicle or equipment, and in Robinson’s case, unlawfully taking or driving a vehicle and harboring or aiding a felony suspect/accessory.
Dmorrion Avery Holmes, Michael Raynile Phillips, Tanisha Anthony and Klonie Karmell Steele McNeese are charged with murder and carjacking. Holmes and Phillips are charged with kidnapping, as well. All six – four men and two woman – have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
The preliminary hearing for the six began on November 3. Before Judge Vic Stull, prosecutor Mari Braun laid out enough detail through the testimony of Barstow Police officers and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s officers calculated to bind the defendant’s over for trial.
It appears that Steel McNeese lured Shehata into a situation in which Holmes, 18, and Phillips, 19, killed him.
Shehata became familiar with Steele McNeese, 19, more than a month ago. The two lived across the street from one another in Barstow. McNeese apparently first made contact with Shehata by bumming cigarettes from him. At some point, Shehata propositioned Steele McNeese, offering her $15 for oral gratification. According to the sheriff’s department, Steele McNeese never took Shehata up on the offer, but left the door open to that possibility. She entered his cell phone number in her phone as “This guy.”
Meanwhile, Anthony, 23, was in Barstow. A friend of McNeese, they were both in touch with members of what the sheriff’s department’s gang task force identifies as a “squad” or “clique,” which included Holmes, known by his alias “Take Off,” Robinson, called “Knuckles,”, Fuller, whose nickname was “Young Deuce,” and Phillips, who went by “Mister.” The squad was known as “Young N Gettin It” or YNG.
Anthony was in need of transportation so she could get to San Dimas to pick up her boyfriend Knuckles, i.e., Robinson, 21, who was staying at his sister’s house. It so happened that on October 12, Shehata had given Steele McNeese a ride to the Cactus Motel, where Anthony was staying. As Steele McNeese exited the vehicle, a Toyota Camry, Shehata asked if she would like to go over to his house. Steele McNeese declined the offer at that point.
Shortly thereafter, however, while Steele McNeese was in Anthony’s room at the Cactus Inn, Anthony’s need for a car came up in the course of their conversation. It was at that point that the plan to take Shehata’s car was cooked up, according to the sheriff’s department.
Steele McNeese called Shehata and arranged to meet him at Lillian Park. When Shehata arrived at Lillian Park, he was met by Holmes and Phillips. The next installment in the story comes from the Barstow Police Department.
A witness who lives in the 200 block of Lillian Drive later reported to police that on October 12 she heard a yell and she looked outside. She said she saw a man lying face down on the ground with two men hovering over him. The two men were kicking the downed man. They then dragged him to a Toyota Camry, lifted him and threw him into the backseat. They drove off.
According to homicide investigators Holmes and Phillips both said Shehata was still alive on the night of October 19, when they threw him onto the desert floor and left to drive back to Anthony’s room at the Cactus Inn.
When Fuller, 20, and Robinson were caught tooling around in Shehata’s Camry on October 19, they were arrested.
At that point, sheriff’s homicide investigators Adam Salsberry and Brendan Motley went to work on them. Salsberry and Motley climbed the ladder and got the two joyriders to acknowledge that the Camry had been used to retrieve Robinson from his sister’s house in San Dimas, that Robinson had used it to get to an appointment with his probation officer in Pasadena and to make a trip to Rialto. Fuller and Robinson then implicated Holmes, Phillips, Steele McNeese and Anthony in the theft of the car. When he was grilled, Phillips let it all hang out and filled in the blanks with regard to waylaying Shehata and taking him out into the desert and leaving him to die. Both Holmes and Phillips recounted the carjacking and kidnapping of Shehata and described in some detail the planning of the crimes in Anthony’s motel room.
When Shehata’s body was found on October 19 it was in a state of severe decomposition. He was bound with duct tape around his ankles, wrists and neck, with his underwear lowered below his groin area. An autopsy found two significant wounds to his head, described as small contusions on the right and left side of his head. Though his body was too decomposed for medical examiners to determine internal injuries or specify any single “obvious fatal injury,” Braun said Shehata died from “homicidal violence.”