Lawrence Sykes, a 57-year-old Black/African American man from Huntington, West Virginia, was fatally shot on the afternoon of February 4, 2016, inside an apartment in the Marcum Terrace housing complex. Huntington police were called to the 1300 block of Marcum Terrace at about 3:20 p.m. after reports of gunfire. Officers found Sykes suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed from the scene to St.
Mary’s Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, but he was pronounced dead later that day. Police immediately began interviewing witnesses and searching for two people believed to have fled after the shooting. Investigators initially described the violence as believed to be drug-related.
The investigation quickly centered on Brandon Lamar McCauley, also known as “Louie,” a Detroit man whom police identified as the alleged gunman. According to the criminal complaint, McCauley fired several rounds from a handgun at Sykes. A murder warrant was issued for him shortly after the killing, but he was not immediately apprehended. Authorities believed that after the shooting he left West Virginia and returned to Michigan, beginning a fugitive period that would last nearly a year.
Police also arrested Ericka Miller of Huntington in connection with the homicide. Investigators accused Miller of driving McCauley and another man to the area before the shooting, waiting for them in the vehicle, and then driving them away afterward. According to the criminal complaint, Miller returned to the area of her residence on Guyan Avenue, parked the vehicle about a block away and removed its registration plate. Police recovered the vehicle, conducted a SWAT-assisted search of Miller’s residence the following morning, and arrested her during a traffic stop. She was charged with accessory before the fact to murder.
A third man, Tyson Davis of Akron, Ohio, was later identified during the investigation. Police obtained a warrant charging Davis with malicious wounding. The charge stemmed from an incident on the same day in which Davis was accused of repeatedly striking another man, knocking him down and kicking him. Davis was arrested in March 2016 and held at the Western Regional Jail on a $100,000 bond. Contemporary reporting connected him to the investigation surrounding the Marcum Terrace homicide, and investigators said Miller had transported both McCauley and Davis, but authorities did not publicly accuse Davis of firing the shots that killed Sykes.
McCauley remained wanted until February 1, 2017, when U.S. Marshals arrested him in Michigan. His capture came almost exactly one year after the murder warrant had been issued. He was subsequently returned to West Virginia, arraigned on the murder charge and held without bond. Later that month, a Cabell County grand jury formally indicted him for murder in Sykes’ death. The case eventually proceeded to trial in September 2018, with prosecutors alleging that McCauley had fired the handgun rounds that killed Sykes. After hearing the evidence and deliberating, however, jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The judge declared a hung jury on September 17, meaning the murder prosecution would have to be tried again unless the case was otherwise resolved.
The case ultimately ended without a second murder trial. On January 16, 2019, McCauley pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing Sykes. Cabell County Circuit Judge Alfred E. Ferguson sentenced him to 15 years in prison. During the sentencing proceeding, McCauley apologized both to Sykes’ family and to his own family. The plea and sentence brought the central prosecution in the case to a conclusion nearly three years after the shooting, transforming the original murder charge into a voluntary manslaughter conviction while still holding McCauley criminally responsible for Sykes’ death. Later reporting continued to identify McCauley as having been convicted of voluntary manslaughter stemming from the February 2016 Marcum Terrace shooting.
