In the spring of 2017, the life of 17-year-old Kaison Mitchell was tragically cut short on the streets of Norfolk, Virginia. On the evening of April 26th, shots rang out in the 300 block of East Olney Road and Whitaker Lane. When police arrived, they found Kaison and a 17-year-old girl suffering from gunshot wounds. Both were rushed to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where Kaison was pronounced dead.
The teenage girl was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released.
The investigation into the double shooting led to the arrests of three individuals. Eighteen-year-old Robert Lee Vick Jr. and Tranathan Tyrone Holmes, who was also 18, were taken into custody. A third suspect, a minor at the time, Demetrius A. Green, was also charged in connection with the homicide that stunned the Young Terrace community. The U.S. Marshals Office and the Norfolk Police Department collaborated on the apprehension of the suspects, who were described as suspected gang members.
The path to justice, however, proved to be fraught with challenges. In August 2017, a significant setback occurred in the prosecution of the case. A prosecutor announced that all charges against Tranathan Tyrone Holmes and Demetrius A. Green were being dropped. The decision was made after a key witness failed to appear in court to testify, leaving the prosecution with insufficient evidence to proceed against the two.
The case against the third suspect, Robert Lee Vick Jr., was set for a preliminary hearing in September 2017. However, the ultimate disposition of the charges against him in the murder of Kaison Mitchell is not publicly available in online sources. In a separate and later incident, in August 2020, Vick, then 22, was arrested and subsequently convicted for a double homicide that occurred at a 7-Eleven in Norfolk. He was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for those crimes in September 2022. While his subsequent criminal history is documented, the final outcome of the charges he faced for the 2017 shooting that claimed the life of Kaison Mitchell remains unclear.
