Jury: Man guilty in fatal shooting of St. Paul victim playing video games

A Ramsey County jury has convicted a St. Paul man of murder and other counts in the 2022 killing of a 26-year-old shot from outside his home while he played video games in a bedroom, and whose funeral was the scene of deadly gang-related violence.

Delaquay Williams, 30, was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree aiding and abetting murder, illegal possession of ammunition or a firearm, and two counts of a crime committed for a gang’s benefit for killing Casanova Carter.

Williams pleaded not guilty to all counts, launching a 10-day jury trial that ended with the guilty verdicts on Dec. 13.

Judge Timothy Mulrooney will sentence Williams on Jan. 29, though Williams’ attorney has announced plans to motion for a new trial.

According to an online fundraiser set up by his sister, Carter was the father “of three beautiful children.”

During the trial, prosecutors collected evidence that suggested Williams, Montez Davis and Kendall Pruitt shot Casanova Carter from a window outside his home. A funeral for Carter weeks later turned violent when police say a gang-related shooting injured three and killed a 28-year-old man attending Carter’s service.

Charges against Williams do not list a motive, but those documents say Carter accused Pruitt of being a snitch on social media “and as a result Pruitt and [Carter] were beefing.” A St. Paul police officer assigned to the gun and gang unit also wrote in a court filing that Pruitt and Carter were both Hit Squad members, and “this conflict had escalated in recent weeks” leading up to Carter’s death, “and they had been threatening one another ever since.”

According to the charges:

St. Paul police responded to a shots fired call in the 700 block of Winslow Avenue on Feb. 1, 2022. They arrived at 10:17 p.m. and found Carter unresponsive in the hallway with gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner later determined that Carter died from gunshot wounds to the back, neck and face.

Residents said Carter entered the building earlier that evening and was playing video games in a bedroom. Officers noted an empty office chair with a bullet hole in that bedroom, as well as about a dozen bullet holes in the curtains and bedroom window.

Investigators found 18 bullet casings fired from four different guns outside the apartment building. Surveillance footage showed those casings came from four men who exited a Nissan Altima minutes before the shooting. The footage showed three of them walking toward the north side of the building where Carter played video games, and multiple gunshots were heard moments later.

Footage also showed one man shooting at the front of the house before the four ran toward the Nissan Altima. DNA swabs matched Williams to the exterior siding under the window Carter was shot from, and cellphone data showed his phone was with Pruitt and Davis around the time of Carter’s death.

Williams was also convicted of second-degree assault and ineligible possession of a firearm for two separate incidents in 2018. According to court documents for those cases, Williams shot a man four times after exchanging words outside an apartment building in the 1600 block of Maryland Avenue E. Authorities issued a warrant for his arrest.

Weeks later, Williams was named as a gang member who shot a man in the knee before robbing him and fleeing. That victim claimed to have known Williams for 10 years, and told investigators that Williams likely shot him because of an incident in 2012.

Pruitt, also charged in Carter’s death, pleaded guilty to second-degree aiding and abetting murder last year. He received a prison sentence of nearly 34 years.

Court proceedings for Davis, the other man charged with second-degree murder in the case, are ongoing. Davis’ next court hearing is Feb. 18.

Paul Walsh of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.