‘Thought I was going to die’: Wichita woman recalls parking lot attack that killed boyfriend

Sonteah Norwood was in the driver’s seat, her boyfriend the passenger, when shots started to come through the windshield.

Six shots hit her Buick, though police later told her 12 rounds had been fired. The exchange lasted seconds, but left her longtime boyfriend, Jaden Wilson, dead.

The couple had been together more than three years and planned to marry and have children.

“I was scared,” the 21-year-old said. “I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to die with him … when he was shooting, I thought I was about to die.”

Wilson was able to make it just outside the car, where he died after being hit multiple times in a smoke shop parking lot near 21st and Grove on March 21.

Norwood said the 17-year-old accused of shooting at them used to be friends with Wilson. He turned himself in at the jail that night. He was charged Monday with first-degree murder, criminal discharge of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, according to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

On Tuesday, police also arrested 41-year-old Tyree Javon Jackson in the 20-year-old Wilson’s death. The Wichita man had a first appearance Wednesday afternoon and has been charged with first-degree murder and criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle, court records show.

Police previously said the shooting was over “an ongoing dispute.”

Norwood didn’t know what sparked the shooting.

It happened just after they pulled up to the smoke shop with a friend of Wilson’s family, who went inside.

Norwood said a larger vehicle pulled up next to her on the driver’s side and a teen got out of the passenger seat. She didn’t pay much attention as he went around to the driver’s side of that vehicle.

Then the driver rolled down the passenger window.

Here’s what Norwood said happened next:

The driver said “you trippin” to them, as the passenger came around the front of the vehicle, toward them and repeated what the driver had said.

Wilson replied: “Are you tripping?”

“Then (the passenger) said it one more time … as he’s saying it, he’s walking up to my car,” she said. “He stood right in front of me and started shooting at (Wilson).”

She covered herself and tried to reverse the car, but the shooter was running away by then. The other driver backed out and took off as well.

Wilson had left the car and was on the ground.

“I don’t really remember him opening the door. The shooting was loud,” she said.

Norwood stopped trying to reverse and called 911.

Police arrived immediately after being flagged down by a witness. They began CPR, but Wilson died at the scene.

“They never even went into the store,” she said. “I don’t know if it was just them trying to get after him as the reason they pulled up up there.”

Norwood said she had known the teen accused in the shooting since she and Wilson first started dating more than three years ago. She said Wilson and he got into an argument last summer. She didn’t know why, but didn’t know any ongoing issues between them. She said they had given him a ride just a few months ago.

She didn’t know the man accused in the shooting and didn’t think Wilson knew him either.