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UPDATE: Tabb High teen’s killing: Prosecutor plans to try teen as adult

Johanna Somers, a member of The Virginian-Pilot newsroom staff, photographed October 2015. Steve Earley | The Virginian-Pilot
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UPDATED 10:30 a.m.: A 17-year-old Grafton High student who has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with a Tabb High student’s death will likely be charged as an adult.

At a detention hearing on Thursday morning at the York Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court for the Grafton High teen, York-Poquoson Commonwealth’s Attorney Ben Hahn asked the judge if the 17-year-old’s name could be released because he planned to try him as an adult. Judge Wade Bowie told Hahn would need to file a motion to have the 17-year-old’s name released.

Less than two weeks ago Tabb High teen Dylan Peters was killed when someone shot five bullets through his front door as he struggled to close the door. A 17-year-old Grafton High student, with the initials E.T., was charged with second-degree murder, attempted robbery and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. A second person, 20-year-old Tevin Lambert, has been charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. Sheriff J.D. “Danny” Diggs has said Peters’ death seemed to be a robbery or a drug deal gone bad.

Peters mother, Theresa Wright, attended the hearing along with Peters’ 19-year-old sister, Melanie Wright. When E.T.’s face was shown over video conference Melanie Wright jumped to the edge of her seat. About halfway through the hearing Theresa Wright left the hearing shaking and starting to cry.

Two people who attended the hearing in support of E.T. sat quietly throughout the hearing.

During the hearing Bowie asked whether the defense would ask for E.T. be released from the Merrimac Juvenile Detention Center. Defense Attorney Shawn Overbey of Heath, Overbey and Verser, P.L.C., said he would not be challenging the detention because of the nature of the charge and the unlikelines of the judge deciding to release him.

An adjudicatory hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on April 23 at the York Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. Overbey waived his client’s right to have the adjudicatory hearing within 21 days in order to have more time to prepare.

Previously

There is still a half-full bowl of chili on a bookshelf in 17-year-old, Tabb High victim — Dylan Peters’ home. His mother said she can’t throw it in the garbage because Peters was eating it before he was killed.

His 20-year-old sister, Melissa Wright, who has brain damage and partial paralysis, has been “screeching” more than normal because she can sense what’s going on, said Theresa Wright, their mother.

“I am not cried-out,” she said. “But at the moment I am just busy — as long as I focus on her I am pretty good.”

On Jan. 27 Peters answered his front door, spoke with a guy and then struggled to shut the front door. As Peters held the door shut, the person outside shot five bullets from a .40 caliber handgun through the door and Peters was struck in his chest, shoulder, hand and leg, according to the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff J.D. “Danny” Diggs said Peters’ death seemed to be a robbery or a drug deal gone bad.

On Jan. 28 a 17-year-old Grafton High student was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, attempted robbery and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. His name has not been released but his initials are E.T., according to a criminal complaint.

On Tuesday a second person, a 20-year-old former Grafton High student, was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. The 20-year-old, Tevin Lambert, currently lives in Newport news on the 800 block of Chatsworth Drive. He is being held without bail at the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail.

Lambert was charged because he allegedly gave E.T. a backpack to use when he went to Peters’ home to steal drugs and assisted E.T. with the robbery by making phone calls to Peters, according to the complaint.

On the day of Dylan Peters death E.T., Lambert and Alphonzo Jackson, who has not been charged, allegedly gathered in the Coventry subdivision of York County, the complaint said. Jackson told police he saw a black-colored pistol on E.T.’s left side, struck down into his pants while they walked to his house, the complaint said.

Later, the three went to another person’s residence to hang out, the complaint said. At that time Lambert and E.T. used Lambert’s cell phone to text Peters messages to try to arrange a drug purchase, the complaint said. Jackson told investigators that E.T. had said he was going to rob Peters because he had heard while being locked up in the Merrimac Juvenile Detention Center that Peters had a quantity of marijuana, money and a gun, the complaint said. Before they left the residence, Lambert handed E.T. his backpack and told him to use it to put the drugs he took from Peters inside it, the complaint said.

E.T. allegedly went toward Cattail Lane where Peters lived and Lambert and Jackson went to a girl’s home, who wasn’t home. As they turned around to go back to Jackson’s home, Jackson said he heard several gun shots.

Once Jackson got back to his house, E.T. was there and allegedly told him “he had shot Dylan” and didn’t get any drugs or money, the complaint said.

Wright, said the defendants’ claim about robbery is false. Peters had only 80 cents in a Mason jar, she said. Peters was in family therapy, was taking urine drug tests and was clean, she said.

She said she wants the person responsible for killing her son charged with first-degree murder.

“The pain will always be in there for me,” Wright said. “And I will get justice, as long as it will take me.”

Zac White, 19, who graduated from Grafton High School and said he was a friend of Peters’, said he had classes with Lambert in 9th, 10th and 11th grade at Grafton High.

“Man, man, I have known Tevin for a long time,” White said. “I can’t believe this. It’s really sad.”

He said he wasn’t surprised that another person was arrested because he thought more than the one person could be involved in Peters’ death but that he was surprised Lambert could be “capable of” something like this.

“I know if (Lambert) had stuck with football, he would have a future at it because he laid me out a few times, and I am a big guy,” White said. “But he didn’t of course and he is probably gonna spend a lot of time behind bars.”

White said that Lambert was “associated” with Peters and that he would see him around the Tabb area.

“Dylan’s dead and then we got two people in jail and there is nothing to show for it,” White said. “No one got no money, no one got no drugs, they just got a bunch of jail time. Three lives lost that day and for nothing.”

Somers can be reached by phone at 757-298-5176.