How police found the man now charged with murdering a Wichita AutoZone employee
.jpeg "Lamontae Donae Lucas")
A phoned-in tip from a citizen sure he saw the gunman who killed an AutoZone employee last month helped lead investigators to the 18-year-old Wichitan they eventually arrested for Nicholas Blue’s murder.
According to an affidavit released Friday, the citizen and his family members told Wichita police in a meeting that followed the July 27 call that they saw a man run and get into a green Kia Soul as they were parked outside of a relative’s home on July 26, the night Blue was slain.
The citizen and his family told authorities the fleeing man’s appearance resembled a surveillance photo of Blue’s killer that had been released by police the day after the 40-year-old was gunned down while working at the AutoZone store at 910 S. Oliver. The family said in the interview that they remembered the fleeing man partly because he was struggling to run in heavy clothing that was too warm for the hot summer weather.
In the surveillance photo, the gunman wore a mask, long pants, and a dark long-sleeved hoodie with white stars and stripes.
The tip led police to talk to others in the neighborhood who confirmed that a green Kia Soul and a man matching the shooter’s description had been in the area around the time Blue died. Video surveillance footage from a nearby store also showed the Kia in the area.
An officer who eventually spotted the green Kia Soul traveling in the area followed it and talked to its owner. The owner told police she spent part of the evening of July 26 driving her grandson and two of his friends to different locations because one of the friends — 18-year-old Lamontae Donae Lucas — wanted to sell some sneakers.
The grandmother told police after one failed attempt to sell the shoes, she drove the men to a street west of Oliver, and Lucas got out. He was gone for 10 or 20 minutes, she told police, then he “returned and acted like he had been running because he was out of breath.”
“She said he said the sneakers deal did not happen that time either” the affidavit says, so she drove home and the men left.
Other witnesses police interviewed told how Lucas showed up at his mother’s home around midnight for a few minutes to grab some bags and asked questions like “how long would it take for officers to investigate a dead body?” and “what happens when that case doesn’t get solved?”
Police arrested Lucas on July 28, two days after Blue’s death. He told police who interviewed him that he wasn’t at the AutoZone store the day Blue died, said that “he had never been there” and that investigators wouldn’t find his DNA on the door handles.
Security footage of the moments leading up to the shooting shows a man walking up to the AutoZone and starting to open the door then releasing the handle and leaving. When he returns, the man walks into the store to the front counter, pulls a gun out of the pocket of his pants and shoots Blue once in the forehead before running off.
Police have previously said they think Lucas meant to rob the store. He is charged with second-degree intentional murder in the case. His next court date is Nov. 5.
