In the evening hours of October 17, 2013, Deirera McGhee, a 29-year-old female, was fatally shot inside a Milwaukee apartment building. The events leading to her death began with a seemingly minor dispute. Earlier that day, a man had urinated on a building in the 4600 block of N. Teutonia Ave. This act led to a confrontation with Bilal Garner, the son of the building's owner.
The man who urinated, Charles Donnell, ended up punching Bilal during the argument.
Seeking retaliation for the earlier slight, Bilal Garner, 23, and his brother, Malik Garner, 21, later went to Deirera McGhee's residence. Donnell and another man, Quinton Payne, who was in a relationship with McGhee, were inside the apartment at the time. When there was a knock at the door, gunfire erupted. McGhee was struck multiple times in her arms, back, and leg, and she died at the scene. Investigators recovered over a dozen bullet casings of two different calibers from the apartment.
Both Bilal and Malik Garner were subsequently arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide. During the legal proceedings, the case against the brothers took several turns. The two key witnesses, Donnell and Payne, initially gave conflicting statements to the police. They later testified that they had lied because they wanted to seek their own revenge against the Garner brothers for McGhee's death and did not want the police to apprehend them first. Donnell eventually admitted he was the one who urinated on the building and identified both brothers as the shooters.
Ultimately, the cases against the two brothers had different outcomes. In March 2015, a jury found Bilal Garner not guilty of the homicide charge. A few months later, in June 2015, Malik Garner's trial for the same charge ended in a hung jury, with the jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The prosecution faced the decision of whether to retry the case against him.
