Andre Shrell Clanton Jr., a 37-year-old Black man from Davenport, died after he was shot during a tense early-morning encounter on May 21, 2023. Although some records listed the loss under May 20, his obituary, police reporting and later court proceedings identified May 21 as the date of the shooting and his death. The violence unfolded shortly before 5 a.m.
at a home in the 1300 block of Judson Street, where Clanton had unexpectedly arrived to see a woman with whom he shared a child.
Inside the house were Deshawn Armal Washington and Washington's brother, Donald. According to testimony later presented in court, the woman asked the brothers to remain quiet and then urged them to leave through the back door when Clanton heard laughter from inside. Clanton entered and looked through the residence for the person he had heard, then returned to the front porch. As the brothers came around the side of the home, Clanton questioned why they were there. Witnesses said one of the brothers suddenly drew a handgun and shot him in the head without warning.
The brothers fled in a gold Dodge Journey while a distraught witness called 911. Police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel responded to the Judson Street residence, but Clanton's wound proved fatal. Investigators initially said the shooting did not appear to have been random, indicating that the people involved were connected and that the confrontation had developed from the circumstances inside the home.
Witness accounts quickly focused the investigation on Deshawn Washington, who was also known as Shawn. Surveillance cameras captured a gold Dodge Journey leaving the neighborhood after the shooting and traveling through Davenport toward Rock Island, Illinois. Officers later found a matching vehicle outside a Rock Island residence associated with Washington. He was arrested on May 23, two days after the killing, and Davenport police obtained a warrant to search the residence, his telephone and his online accounts.
Digital evidence became an important part of the case. Location information from Washington's phone placed him traveling from Rock Island to the Judson Street home shortly before 4 a.m. Investigators discovered a gap in the phone's data beginning around the time of the shooting, which police said could have resulted from the device being turned off or placed in airplane mode. Later that morning, Washington used a private search engine to look for information about a shooting in Davenport.
Police also recovered Facebook messages exchanged after Clanton's death. In one conversation, the woman at the residence directly asked Washington why he had shot Clanton. Washington responded that he was innocent and wrote that authorities were pursuing the wrong “Shawn.” At trial, however, she identified Washington as the gunman, testifying that she heard the shot, saw Clanton fall and then saw Washington putting the weapon back into his pocket. Her mother, who had also come downstairs during the disturbance, described the shooter as the taller of the two brothers. Prosecutors presented photographs and testimony indicating that Washington was larger and taller than Donald.
Investigators never recovered the firearm, bullet or shell casing used to kill Clanton. Officers did seize an unloaded 9-millimeter handgun that belonged to the woman and had been hidden between couch cushions, but its magazine was found elsewhere in her vehicle. A search of Donald's phone uncovered a video showing him displaying a loaded. 380-caliber Glock and messages indicating that the brothers had been together that morning. Donald denied knowing anyone named Deshawn and did not provide investigators with an account of the shooting, but he was not charged with Clanton's murder.
Washington was initially charged with first-degree murder and possession of a firearm as a felon, with the firearm count enhanced because of his prior record. He pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial. The prosecution argued that the eyewitness identifications, surveillance footage, vehicle evidence, telephone-location records, online search history and social-media messages established that Washington was the brother who fired the fatal shot. The defense challenged the reliability of the eyewitnesses and emphasized differences in their descriptions, arguing that the state had not conclusively distinguished Washington from Donald.
The jury declined to convict Washington of first-degree murder but found him guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder. Jurors also convicted him of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court imposed an indeterminate 50-year prison sentence for the murder, requiring Washington to serve at least 35 years before becoming eligible for parole consideration. He received an additional indeterminate 15-year sentence on the firearm conviction, carrying a three-year mandatory minimum. The judge ordered the sentences to run consecutively.
Washington appealed, maintaining that prosecutors had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he, rather than his brother, had shot Clanton. On August 20, 2025, the Iowa Court of Appeals rejected that argument. The court ruled that the eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence provided substantial support for the jury's decision. It affirmed both convictions, leaving Washington's consecutive prison sentences in effect and formally resolving the criminal case surrounding Clanton's killing.
