In the late hours of a Saturday night in Martinsville, Virginia, the life of 47-year-old Antoine Jermaine Preston, known to his friends as 'Smoke,' was tragically cut short. On September 30, 2023, at approximately 11:43 p.m., the Martinsville-Henry County 911 Center received calls reporting gunshots in the 1400 block of Fayette Street, near the Maplewood Apartments.
When police officers arrived at the scene, they were directed by three individuals to a pickup truck that had gone over a guardrail and down a steep embankment, where it lay upside down.
Upon reaching the overturned vehicle, first responders made a grim discovery. Inside the truck was the body of Antoine Jermaine Preston. Investigators found shell casings on the road, indicating that the pickup truck had been the intended target of gunfire. The subsequent investigation led authorities to believe that the shooting directly caused the fatal crash. An autopsy was ordered to be performed by the state medical examiner's office in Roanoke to determine the precise cause of death. Friends and family remembered Preston as a loving father and a talented artist, a man about whom a negative word was seldom spoken.
The investigation into the homicide progressed, leading to the identification and arrest of two suspects. The first, 46-year-old Delano Tomaz Ross of Martinsville, was taken into custody without incident on Spring Street. He faced a litany of charges, including first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, shooting from a vehicle to endanger persons, shooting into an occupied vehicle, possession of a firearm and ammunition by a violent convicted felon, and reckless handling of a firearm. Ross was held without bond.
A second arrest followed, bringing 32-year-old Ricardo Ortiz IV of Spencer into custody. Ortiz was charged with first-degree murder, shooting from a vehicle to endanger persons, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The Martinsville Police Department continued to investigate the case, interviewing additional witnesses and collecting more evidence even after the arrests were made. They urged anyone with further information to come forward and contact the department or the local Crime Stoppers program.
