'Terrible situation': Search continues for man accused of killing pregnant woman in Kent
Kent police working with law enforcement agencies nationwide to find an Arizona man wanted in the Nov. 21 shooting death of a pregnant woman on South Water Street.
Dawan Rahman Wilson, 44, is currently charged with aggravated murder in Portage County Municipal Court in Kent in the death of 35-year-old Cheretta Frierson. Kent Police Lt. Mike Lewis, however, said Tuesday afternoon that updated charges in the deaths of both Frierson and her unborn child are expected.
"It's just a terrible, terrible situation," Lewis said.
Police responded after receiving a 911 call reporting screams and possible gunshots at a home in the 1300 block of South Water Street at about 2 p.m. Nov. 21.
"I think, I think somebody got shot," the caller, who said he is a neighbor, can be heard telling a police dispatcher during the nearly five-minute call.
"My next door, my neighbor," he added. "I heard gunshots, I think three or four times."
The man said he also heard someone screaming, but could not tell if the person screaming was male or female.
According to a police incident report, when officers arrived, they could hear a child crying inside the home. They knocked at the door, which was locked, and heard the crying stopping and starting several times and then someone trying to open the door.
After they called out, a child, identified in the report only as a "small girl," said she was unable to open the door and that her mother was hurt. The officers then found a window next to the door was unlocked and they were able to open it and unlock the door.
The girl said her brother was also in the home and that her mother was downstairs. According to the report, the officers believed they heard her say through her crying and muffled words, "Daddy shot her."
Police said they found a woman laying at the bottom of the basement stairs, "bleedingprofusely from the face." A spent bullet, a shell casing and a fragment from a bullet were found near the woman.
The officers determined, and paramedics confirmed, the woman was dead.
A crying infant was found on a bed nearby. No injuries were reported to either child in the report. The report does not specify what happened to the children, but Portage County Job and Family Services was notified.
Lewis said it is considered a "domestic-related incident." Police did not disclose the relationship between the suspect and the victim.
Court records show an address for Wilson in Goodyear, Arizona.
"We're still very much actively looking for him and working with multiple law enforcement agencies throughout the country to try and locate him," Lewis said, adding that police in Arizona have been alerted.
Lewis said Frierson had also been living in Arizona but was staying with a family member at the South Water Street home. The family member was not present at the time of the shooting, he said.
Lewis said that at some point after the victim came to Ohio, Wilson also traveled here, but it is unclear how long he had been in the area at the time of the shooting.
Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Search continues for man accused of killing pregnant woman in Kent
