New details emerge in Kettering teen’s homicide

Two of three teens held in the shooting death of a Fairmont High School junior said a third one fired the shot that killed Ronnie Bowers, newly obtained court documents show.

Kettering police and prosecutors previously had not said which person they suspected of pulling the trigger in the Sept. 4 shooting near AlterFest, Kettering’s first gun-related homicide in nine years.

The court documents also reveal for the first time that the gun believed to be used in the shooting was found in a trash can.

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Bowers, a Fairmont High School junior who police called an “innocent bystander,” died two days after the shooting.

Hours before his death, two 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old were all charged with felonious assault. New or amended charges have yet to be filed against the three, all of whom are Kettering students.

A fourth suspect, 2016 Fairmont grad Miles Heizer, was jailed the morning after the shooting. He was released pending further investigation, police have said.

He faces charges in a separate case involving another Fairmont student, and the 14-year-old faces charges in another case.

The 14-year-old and one 16-year-old held in the killing of Bowers said the other 16-year-old teen “fired the gun, striking the victim,” according to an affidavit by Kettering police for a search warrant filed in Montgomery County Juvenile Court.

Kettering police on Friday declined to address inquiries involving the court documents. When asked Thursday if prosecutors had identified any of the defendants as a suspected shooter, the attorney for the 16-year-old implicated in the court documents said, “No comment.”

All three defendants are set to return to court Oct. 26.

The shooting occurred shortly before 9 p.m. after Bowers and a few friends left AlterFest, attempting to flee an ongoing dispute with another group that flared up earlier that night at the festival, police have said.

The second group followed them to the 800 block of Willowdale Avenue near Ackerman Boulevard, blocking a sedan driven by Bowers, police said.

The juveniles charged in the case left the scene of the shooting, according to court documents.

About 9:30 p.m. Kettering police received complaints that at Kantner Park the 14-year-old defendant was “brandishing a firearm” and that he “had previously brandished a firearm in the presence of his family while at the same park,” court records state.

Police knew the 14-year-old lived near the park and went to the home and received permission from the teen’s mother to search the residence, records show.

Those same records indicate police found the 14-year-old under his bed. His mother told police her son “had returned home and stated ‘something went down.’”

Court records show police obtained a search warrant for the home and did not find a gun. Police reviewed video of the area and saw the 14-year-old with the 16-year-old defendant not suspected as being the shooter, court records said.

The gun was found hours later in a trash can in the laundry room of the apartment building where the two suspected accomplices live, court records show.

The 16-year-old suspected accomplice “ultimately admitted to being at the scene of the shooting and stated that he had disposed of the gun,” court records show.

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