Fatal shooting: 12-gauge shotgun at point-blank range (with police report)

New details have been released in the Nov. 1 fatal shooting of Crestview resident Jeffery Brown.

Witnesses told investigators Brown was shot at point-blank range by his brother, Eddie Rice, who was armed with a sawed-off shotgun.

(Read the police report by clicking the following link: http://video.onset.freedom.com/crestview/kt9u0g-brownreport.pdf)

A second defendant in the shooting, Jasper Brown, who is a half brother to both Rice and Jeffery Brown, told investigators his two brothers had both been romantically involved with the same woman for more than 10 years.

Jasper Brown told investigators “ongoing altercations” over the woman was the motive for the shooting. Both Jasper Brown and two witnesses identified Eddie Rice as the shooter, according to a Crestview Police Department report.

Rice  and Jasper Brown are both in custody at the Okaloosa County Jail and are charged with open counts of murder.

A plea date has been scheduled for Dec. 8 for both men.

A Crestview police report states Jasper Brown, 30 and Eddie Rice, 28, were both armed with sawed-off shotguns when they approached a house at 548 South Savage St. Jasper Brown was looking for a man with whom he had argued with earlier that day, witnesses told police.

During the argument, the man had threatened to “return with a pistol,” Jasper Brown told investigators.

The man Jasper Brown was looking for was not at the house, however. Meanwhile, Jeffery Brown, 35, was standing with a group of five other people by a burn barrel outside the home, when he and Rice began to argue, the report states.

“Defendant Rice, standing less than three feet from (Jeffery) Brown, discharged his shotgun one time, striking (Jeffery) Brown in the right chest,” the report states.

According to the report, Rice then robbed another man at gunpoint, telling him, “Give me your stuff or you’re gonna bleed too.”

Jeffery Brown was taken by bystanders to North Okaloosa County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Doctors removed paper wadding from a shotgun shell from Jeffery Brown’s chest, indicating he “was shot at extreme close range.”

Investigators said they recovered a spent 12-gauge shotgun shell at the scene of the shooting that had been loaded with “00” buckshot.

Investigators did not recover that gun but did find a 410 shotgun Jasper Brown admitted he had been carrying at the time of the shooting, the police report states.

Both Rice and Jasper Brown face additional charges.

Rice faces a felony charge of selling cocaine within 1,000 feet of a public housing facility in connection with an undercover drug buy earlier this year. According to a Crestview Police report, on Jan. 10, Rice was caught on videotape selling crack cocaine during an undercover operation by the Street Crimes Unit.

Jasper Brown faces additional charges of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and violation of probation.