NEW DETAILS: Suspect tracked with license plate reader charged with murder

Bond was set at $1 million on Friday for a man captured about a half hour after police responded to a deadly shooting earlier this week in Dayton.

Terrill Jerome Nelson, 33, of Dayton was arraigned Friday afternoon in Dayton Municipal Court after charges were filed Thursday for two counts each of murder, felonious assault, failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer and one count of grand theft motor vehicle.

Terrill Nelson

Credit: Montgomery County Jail

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Credit: Montgomery County Jail

Dayton police were called around midnight Wednesday to the 1900 block of Shaftesbury Road, a few blocks southwest of Salem and Philadelphia, where officers found a 35-year-old man who had been shot.

The gunshot victim was identified Friday as Lafeon Hamilton by Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Kent Harshbarger. Hamilton was pronounced dead at the scene.

Nelson reportedly used a .40 caliber semiautomatic gun to shoot the victim, according to an affidavit filed in Dayton Municipal Court.

A woman who called 911 told dispatchers her brother had been drinking and shot her other brother in the head, according to Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center records.

“It wasn’t even an argument or nothing,” she said. “He just shot him in the head.”

Lt. Steven Bauer of the Dayton Police Department said both men knew each other, but were not related.

After the shooting, Nelson is accused of stealing a 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe, the affidavit stated.

Bauer said license plate reader technology helped officers track down Nelson, who drove off before first responders arrived.

“It was very helpful. It needs to be highlighted — the effectiveness of the tool,” Bauer said during a Wednesday afternoon media briefing. “In this case, we (were) able to locate somebody who posed a very big danger to society and we were able to get him in custody very rapidly before anyone else could be harmed.”

When police spotted Nelson in the stolen SUV a short time later, he “recklessly fled the traffic stop,” Bauer said, and reached speeds of about 100 mph during a subsequent police pursuit. Police used tire deflation devices and precision maneuvers to get the vehicle to stop and apprehend Nelson.

Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center logs indicated Nelson was in custody at 12:31 a.m., approximately half an hour after police responded to the shooting.

No attorney is listed for Nelson, who is next scheduled to appear in court on March 3. He remains held in the Montgomery County Jail.

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