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Two people have been arrested in connection with the murder of a woman in Florida as she was live streaming on Facebook.
Leniquea Byrd, 19, and Aniyah Thomas, 21, have both been charged with second-degree murder after 27-year-old Nitekka Lennear was shot to death on the evening of September 2.
The Cocoa Police Department launched an investigation after they received several 911 calls regarding a shooting at an apartment block on North Fiske Boulevard.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found the victim with multiple gunshot wounds.
Lennear was taken to a hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
During the investigation, it was found that Lennear went to the apartment block to confront Thomas, a former girlfriend of hers, about a Facebook post.
Lennear was recording the incident on her phone and live streaming it to the social media site.
The video showed Lennear exiting her vehicle and walking up to the "D" building to confront Thomas, who was with another woman—later identified as Byrd.
Byrd is Thomas' girlfriend and a cousin of Lennear's current girlfriend.
The confrontation then escalated into a physical fight involving both couples. At one point in the video, a woman calls out "shoot her! shoot her!" before several gunshots are heard.
Lennear can then be seen falling to the ground.
"Detectives were able to secure interviews with key witnesses who made corroborating statements indicating Byrd was the shooter and Thomas was the person in the video shouting 'shoot her,'" Cocoa Police said in a statement.
"The witness statements along with the video evidence and other physical evidence at the scene made the probable cause for an arrest for second-degree murder for each of the two suspects."
According to a 911 call obtained by Click Orlando, one woman told the dispatcher that "someone literally just shot her like 20 f*****g times" at the apartment block.
"She's laying down at the end of the stairs," the caller added.
Both suspects are said to have run away from the apartment following the shooting.
During police interviews, Thomas claimed she did not know what happened prior to the shooting as she was fighting with Lennear's girlfriend. She later admitted she was the one who called out "shoot that [expletive], bae," when detectives showed her the video of the incident.
Byrd refused to answer questions regarding the shooting.
The Cocoa Police Department has been contacted for further comment.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more