On a Sunday evening in late May, the sounds of gunfire shattered the peace at Nolte Local Park in Silver Spring, Maryland, leaving two young men dead and a community in mourning. D'Andre Wint, a 20-year-old male from Lanham, was discovered by authorities alongside 20-year-old Quincy Johnson of Takoma Park, both suffering from fatal gunshot wounds. The double homicide, which occurred on May 26, 2024, prompted an intensive investigation by the Montgomery County Department of Police.
First responders arrived at the park in the 200 block of Denver Road at approximately 6:57 p.m., but their lifesaving efforts were in vain, and both Wint and Johnson were pronounced dead at the scene. Friends and family remembered Wint as a 'beautiful soul' with an 'infectious smile and laugh' who brought light and love to those who knew him.
The investigation into the tragic deaths of the two men led detectives to identify two teenage suspects from Silver Spring. The first to be apprehended was 15-year-old Onyx Santana Austin. Evidence gathered by the Major Crimes Division linked Austin to the homicides, and a warrant for his arrest was issued. It was discovered that Austin had fled the country following the shootings. On August 26, 2024, upon his return to the United States, U.S. Customs and Border Protection took him into custody at Dulles International Airport. Austin has been charged as an adult with two counts of second-degree murder.
A second suspect, 16-year-old Adom Bogale Abay, also from Silver Spring, was arrested and charged in connection with the double homicide. On October 3, 2024, authorities announced that Abay faced two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of the use of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. Like Austin, Abay is being charged as an adult. At the time of his arrest for the murders, Abay was already being held at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit on unrelated charges. The arrests brought a measure of progress in a case that had deeply affected the Silver Spring community, which had been seeking answers in the wake of the violent loss of two young lives.
