JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Police have arrested a 21-year-old man and 16-year-old boy in connection with the murder last year of a 17-year-old Ribault High School student, a shooting that investigators suspect was payback for a murder that occurred just two days earlier, according to court records obtained Thursday by News4Jax.
Roland Lamar Ball, Jr., was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Duval County jail on charges linked to the murder of Inandi Wyche, who was gunned down in March 2020 in Jacksonville’s Sherwood Forest neighborhood, records show.
Ball’s arrest comes two days after police took 16-year-old Xavion Porter into custody on a conspiracy charge related to the case. News4Jax is naming the minor because of the nature of the crime.
Wyche was found dead March 19, 2020, by police called to a shooting near Portsmouth Avenue and Norfolk Boulevard, one of five killings in Jacksonville that week. An acquaintance of the 17-year-old was wounded in the gunfire but he was treated for injuries that weren’t deemed life-threatening.
Police said at the time that a grey car was seen pulling up in front of Wyche’s vehicle before two men got out and opened fire with an AK-47.
Wyche’s family told News4Jax the teen was dropping off a friend after the pair went on a date.
Her family does not believe Wyche, described as a good student and cheerleader who planned to attend Florida A&M University, was the intended target — a belief that appears to be supported by newly released court documents.
According to a redacted copy of Ball’s arrest warrant, the 21-year-old was identified as one of the individuals involved in Wyche’s killing, a deadly shooting that police believe was retaliation for the shooting of Daquan Saxton.
Saxton, 20, was killed March 17, 2020, in a shooting that took place three blocks away. Investigators suspect those two shootings were related to a March 18 shooting where police recovered a gun-mounted light.
Multiple witnesses identified Ball as a suspect in the case.
One of them, described in the warrant as an eyewitness, provided details about Wyche’s killing that had not yet been made public. That individual told police they saw Ball get out of a vehicle armed with an automatic rifle the night of March 19 and fire into the 17-year-old’s vehicle before taking off.
A second witness, who also had intimate knowledge of the case, recalled hearing Ball confess to the killing a month later.
The gun-mounted light recovered at one of the shooting scenes was sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s crime lab for DNA testing, according to the warrant, but the results of FDLE’s report on the DNA analysis were redacted.
The warrant did note, however, that investigators reviewed images and video showing Ball in the presence of firearms with mounted lights and laser sights.
Ball, who’s described as a gang member in the warrant and his arrest report, was on probation from a 2017 arrest for trafficking in ecstasy and possession of a firearm by a juvenile delinquent. He was arrested again in October 2020 on various charges, but they were dropped.
He remains in custody at the Duval County jail, where he’s being held on more than $2 million bond while awaiting trial on charges of second-degree murder, aggravated battery and shooting deadly missiles.
Ball did not appear Wednesday at a first hearing on the charge, but he was appointed a public defender. Besides $2,050,000 bond, the judge said if Ball is able to post bond, he will be required to wear a GPS monitor and not have any contact with the victim’s family.
Porter, who’s charged with conspiracy to commit murder, is being held on $1 million bond.