Derick Michael Brown was a 21-year-old White male from Winfield, West Virginia, who was living in Huntington and attending Marshall University when he was killed during the early morning hours of February 28, 2016. The shooting occurred at approximately 2:20 a.m. inside an apartment along Fourth Avenue, close to Marshall’s campus. What began as an armed confrontation inside the residence quickly escalated into a struggle and an exchange of gunfire that left Brown mortally wounded.
Investigators identified Joshua Earl Lomax McDowney of Huntington as the man who entered the apartment armed with a handgun. Witnesses described the intruder as wearing a mask or full-face toboggan. Police testimony later indicated that McDowney initially confronted another person in the apartment and struck that resident with his handgun. Witness accounts reported McDowney shouting words to the effect of “You’re dead” as the confrontation intensified. Brown became involved, and the confrontation between the two men turned physical. Court testimony later indicated that Brown fired a weapon during the confrontation but missed McDowney, who returned fire multiple times. One of McDowney’s shots struck Brown directly in the heart, killing him. Police said Brown and McDowney knew one another and believed Brown was the intended target.
McDowney fled from the apartment after the shooting. As Huntington police officers were responding, they encountered him nearby on Third Avenue. Officers noticed that he was sweating heavily and had a cut on his forehead. Because they had not yet fully established what had happened inside the apartment, officers photographed the injury, obtained his information and initially allowed him to leave. As investigators continued toward the shooting scene, they discovered significant evidence in an alley, including a handgun and a bloody ski mask or full-face toboggan believed to have been discarded by the fleeing gunman.
Police soon focused directly on McDowney. Investigators obtained and executed a search warrant at his residence on Fifth Avenue and found an empty gun box bearing the same serial number as the handgun recovered near the crime scene. Later forensic testing strengthened the case against him. The blood found on the discarded mask was reported to match McDowney’s DNA, and ballistic examination connected shell casings recovered from the shooting scene to the pistol police had found. Investigators also reported finding approximately $7,500 in cash, another firearm and various drugs inside the apartment where the shooting occurred.
McDowney was arrested later on February 28 and charged with murder. He was arraigned and held at the Western Regional Jail without bond. At a preliminary hearing on March 7, 2016, a Huntington police detective described the incident as an apparent robbery that had gone wrong. McDowney’s defense attorney challenged that interpretation, arguing that prosecutors had not produced a witness establishing that a robbery had actually been intended or explaining why McDowney would have wanted to rob anyone in the apartment. Despite those arguments, Magistrate Dan Goheen found sufficient probable cause and sent the case forward for consideration by a grand jury.
The investigation nevertheless supported the prosecution’s contention that McDowney had been the armed man inside the apartment. In September 2016, a Cabell County grand jury formally indicted him for Brown’s murder. Prosecutors continued relying on the physical evidence, witness accounts, the recovered firearm and mask, and evidence linking those items to McDowney. He remained incarcerated while the case proceeded through Cabell County Circuit Court.
The case ultimately ended without a jury trial. On February 6, 2018, McDowney appeared before Cabell Circuit Judge Paul T. Farrell and entered a Kennedy plea to first-degree murder. Under that type of plea, a defendant accepts conviction and punishment while declining to admit personal guilt or involvement in the crime. Brown’s mother addressed the court during sentencing and described the devastation her son’s death had caused his family. She also said her son had experience with firearms and believed that during the confrontation he had chosen not to deliberately take McDowney’s life.
Judge Farrell accepted the plea and sentenced Joshua Earl Lomax McDowney to life imprisonment with mercy for the killing. The “with mercy” provision made him eligible to seek parole after serving a minimum of 15 years, although eligibility does not guarantee release. The plea brought the criminal prosecution to a close nearly two years after the shooting, leaving McDowney convicted of first-degree murder and serving a life sentence for Brown’s death.
