Brandon Bacote-Byer, an 18-year-old Black male from Lower Pottsgrove, was killed late on October 17, 2022, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Authorities said the shooting happened at about 11:30 p.m. near Fourth and Johnson Streets, where Pottstown police responded to multiple reports of gunfire and found Brandon and 17-year-old Skyler Fox lying near Fox’s vehicle. The scene told investigators that the violence had unfolded quickly: numerous fired cartridge casings, a projectile, and a 9 mm handgun with an obliterated serial number were recovered nearby. An autopsy later found that both teens died from multiple gunshot wounds, and their deaths were ruled homicides.
Investigators said the night began with a planned meeting involving Skyler Fox and Dominic Carboni, then 17, of Schwenksville. According to authorities, recovered text data showed Fox and Carboni had arranged to meet throughout the day for a marijuana purchase, with messages beginning in the afternoon and continuing until about 11:22 p.m., only minutes before the shooting. Police later said Carboni had picked up Deonte Kelly, 23, of Philadelphia, in a maroon pickup truck before driving to the meeting location. Surveillance footage helped detectives connect a maroon Ford pickup seen leaving the area after the killings to the same color, make, and model as a Ford F-150 owned by Carboni’s father, which Carboni had reportedly been seen driving earlier that evening.
The aftermath became part of the case against the suspects. Prosecutors said that shortly after the shooting, at about 11:45 p.m., Carboni deleted his message history with Fox. Witness information also indicated that Fox had a backpack on his shoulder as he tried to crawl away from the vehicle, but minutes later the backpack was gone and Fox was no longer moving. Authorities said it was unclear what Brandon’s specific role was in the planned drug transaction, but he was there with Fox when the meeting turned deadly.
Carboni was arrested on October 20, 2022, and charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and third-degree murder, along with robbery. He was initially held at the Montgomery County Juvenile Detention Center. Investigators then identified Kelly as a second suspect, and an arrest warrant was issued for him on murder and robbery charges. Kelly turned himself in to Montgomery County Detectives and Pottstown police at about 6:30 p.m. on October 25, 2022. He was charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and third-degree murder, as well as robbery, and was held without bail because first-degree murder charges are not bailable in Pennsylvania.
By June 2023, both Carboni and Kelly had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, robbery, and related counts in the killings of Brandon Bacote-Byer and Skyler Fox. Prosecutors said the case grew out of a marijuana deal that ended in gunfire, leaving two high school-aged friends dead on a residential Pottstown street. Both defendants faced life in prison on the first-degree murder charges.
