Knoxville's first homicide victim of 2018 was accidentally shot in the back when her friend began playing with a handgun near Market Square shortly after midnight on New Year's Day, court records show. Angela Gosnell/News Sentinel
A man tied to the Jan. 1 fatal shooting of Kayla Viars now faces unrelated drug and gun charges as Viars' family questions his story that another man shot her by accident.
Dominick Michael Brown, a 27-year-old who also goes by "True Story," was arrested at a McDonald's in Sweetwater on Monday night after police learned he planned to meet with Viars' mother and brother and that violence could ensue.
Brown was charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to manufacture, deliver or sell; marijuana possession; and possession of a gun during the commission of a felony.
'Playing' with a gun
Roughly 15 minutes after the ball dropped for Knoxville's New Year's Eve celebration at Market Square, Brown was driving a car in the area, according to court records.
Viars, a 27-year-old mother of four from Loudon, was in the front passenger seat. Marques Dewayne "Polo" Wheeler, 26, sat in the back.
Brown told Knoxville police that Wheeler began "playing" with a gun that he then "accidentally fired," striking Viars in the back, according to an arrest warrant.
The men dropped Viars off at East Tennessee Children's Hospital in nearby Fort Sanders. She was pronounced dead a short time later.
The next day, Knoxville police announced they were searching for Brown, who they described as a person of interest. Police said they found him the evening of Jan. 3.
Police arrested Wheeler the night of Jan. 4, roughly eight hours after they named him as a suspect and asked the public for tips. He faces charges of reckless homicide and being a felon in possession of a gun.
Wheeler, whose criminal history in Knox County includes convictions for aggravated burglary, evading arrest and drug possession, remained Tuesday at the Roger D. Wilson Detention Facility in lieu of $55,000 bond. His preliminary hearing is set for Jan. 16.
Brown has not been charged in the killing.
'Does that seem like an accident to you?'
Kayla Viars' father, Johnny, believes his daughter's death was no accident.
"Why would he be sitting in the back playing with a gun and it accidentally go off?" Johnny Viars asked Tuesday.
"If you shot somebody on accident and rushed them to the hospital, wouldn’t you have gone into the hospital and talked to them about it instead of just dumping her off and leaving her? Then (police) didn’t find them for another three or four days.
"Does that seem like an accident to you?"
'Something's going to go down'
Sweetwater Police Department Sgt. Daniel Johnson never got to eat his fried chicken.
About 6:30 p.m. Monday, he and three other officers filled their plates and sat down at The Dinner Bell, a popular Sweetwater restaurant with a buffet that serves Southern comfort food.
Before Johnson could dig in, Dominic Brown walked in. He and Johnson spotted each other.
Johnson said he recognized Brown, who lists a Sweetwater address and has had run-ins with the law there. But he knew Brown hadn't been charged after Knoxville police questioned him in Viars' killing.
"He actually gave me the peace sign and said, 'What's up,' " Johnson said in a phone interview Tuesday night, adding that Brown abruptly "turned around and walked out."
Johnson said he looked outside and saw Brown talking to Kayla Viars' mother before they split up and got in separate cars.
Johnson began walking back to his table but was stopped by a man who handed him a phone. The man on the other end identified himself as Kayla Viars' uncle and said Brown had planned to meet the mother at The Dinner Bell, Johnson said.
"He says, 'Something’s going to go down. Dominic’s been making threats to some of our family. They’ve been calling him. They’re meeting to talk about the last seconds of Kayla’s life. ... I’m afraid she’s going to shoot him, I’m afraid he’s going to shoot them. I’m afraid there’s going to be big problems,' " Johnson said.
"And I said, 'Where are they going to?' He said, 'They’re going to McDonald’s now.' "
A gun in the McDonald's
Officer Adam Taylor pulled into the McDonald's, circled the building once, then parked behind a purple Buick.
He saw a man, identified in an arrest warrant as Lenning Huerta, getting out of the driver's seat. Taylor asked Huerta where Brown was.
Huerta said Brown was inside the McDonald's meeting with Viars' family, Taylor wrote in the warrant.
A woman came outside and told Taylor that Brown "had just placed a handgun under one of the booths where they were sitting," according to the warrant.
Taylor went inside the restaurant and found a 9-millimeter Glock 43 handgun "that was loaded with one bullet in the chamber," the warrant reads.
Johnson said he interviewed four people, including a 4-year-old child, who said they saw Brown "dump the gun" when he realized police had arrived.
Meth and bullets
Kayla Viars' brother, Johnathan, told police Brown told him to go outside the McDonald's "and talk to 'his boy' meaning Huerta about some drugs," the warrant reads.
A Monroe County sheriff's deputy brought a K-9 officer to the scene, who alerted on the Buick. Inside, police found a bag of meth weighing nearly 1.5 ounces and "bullets with very distinguishing characteristics, which directly linked us to (Brown) having the gun," Johnson said.
In Brown's left jacket pocket, police found "a small bag of a green leafy substance believed to be marijuana," the warrant reads.
Brown admitted to police that the drugs were his, Johnson said.
Brown was arrested and booked into the Monroe County jail, where he remained Tuesday afternoon in lieu of $40,000 bond. He is slated to appear in court Jan. 16.
Huerta was arrested on outstanding drug charges out of Loudon County. He was transferred to the Loudon County jail, where he remained Tuesday afternoon. As of 3 p.m., his bond had not been set.
A 'mysterious' phone call
About 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 1, after his daughter had been shot, Johnny Viars said his phone rang.
The call came from Kayla's phone, but a man's voice was on the other line. The father believes it was Brown.
"He said, 'Your daughter's been shot. She's been shot in the back through a seat,' " Johnny Viars recalled Tuesday.
"I said, 'Who shot her?'
"He said, 'A buddy of mine. His gun went off accidentally.' "
"I asked him, 'How did you get my daughter’s cell phone?' He said it was left in his car."
Johnny Viars said the man told him his daughter was dropped off at a hospital, but that he didn't know the name of it.
Johnny Viars started calling hospitals in Knox, Loudon and Monroe counties, but "no one had reported a female coming in with a gunshot."
Then, around 4 a.m., he said a police investigator called him and asked him to describe his daughter. The investigator confirmed the death of Kayla Viars, mother of two girls and two boys, the oldest of which is 11.
"Somebody killed my little girl," Johnny Viars said. "She didn’t bother nobody. She didn’t deserve to be shot in the back.
"When you have to bury your little girl, I don’t care what kind of man you are. If you’re a good man, you’ll go bad."
Reporter Travis Dorman can be reached at 865-342-6315 or at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @travdorman.