Memphis police have announced the arrests of two men signaling a break in the 2017 shooting death of two-year-old Laylah Washington.
On Saturday officers announced the arrests of Tylan McCray, 21, and Brandon McCray, 19. Police said Tylan was hit with several charges including first-degree murder while his cousin, Brandon, was charged with being an accessory after the fact for driving the car from which Tylan allegedly fired the fatal shots.
Tylan was also charged with drug charges for having marijuana on his person when arrested last Friday, WREG reported.
The little girl was felled by a stray bullet in 2017 while sitting in the back of her mother’s car.
Police noted that their break in the case finally came after someone called in an anonymous tip to the Crime Stoppers line one year after the child was murdered.
The victim’s still grieving mother, Leslie Washington, had criticized her community for refusing to talk to police. “People don’t want to own up to things that they do,” she said. “They took the coward road.”
Police also noted that they had arrested Tylan on unrelated charges in the months after he allegedly murdered the girl. They found the murder weapon on him at the time but had not connected him to the murder until the recent tip came through. The tip and testing of the firearm led to the arrests in the Washington case, they said.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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