The lead detective in the deadly beating of a 64-year-old D.C. man testified he found incriminating messages on Instagram in which some of the five teenage girls charged in the case admitted to taking part in the attack last October.
Those messages were shown to the judge Thursday after multiple objections from the defense.
A year to the day of Reggie Brown’s death, Detective Harry Singleton testified about how he put together the case against the five teenage girls charged in the homicide.
The judge was shown an interview Singleton did with one of the girls in which she admitted being at the scene.
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Singleton told the court he was given the phone and tablet of one of the girls charged in the case and began piecing together what turned out to be hundreds of pages of messages.
Prosecutors said just four hours before the beating, one of the messages read, “We should go on a 4 man,” an apparent reference to the girls looking for a fight.
The next message said, “I got 2 girls with me and I’m at Silver Spring.”
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Singleton then was shown a message from one of the girls that referenced an article about the beating, which said a man was found dead in an alley from head trauma and four suspects were sought.
Singleton said one of the girls then wrote, “We is going to get locked up and we on da news.”
Singleton testified the messages were exchanged between the girls two days after the murder, with one text saying, “OMG it wasn’t even 4 of us it was 6.”
“Tell (name redacted) delete da video on her phone.”
Two of the five girls charged in Brown’s death are on trial in D.C. Superior Court.
Two girls have pleaded guilty in the case. One of them testified Tuesday that the girls went looking for someone to beat up that night because they were bored. She said the came across a man attacking Brown and joined in. That man hasn’t been identified.
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