A boy's text messages to a girl apparently led to a deadly dispute that left a Lehigh Valley teenager dead and a man facing a homicide charge, prosecutors said.
Carlos Richiez, 19, was driving his Honda Accord at the intersection of 10th and Chestnut streets in Allentown shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday when he rear-ended a Land Rover he was tailing following a dispute, Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin said.
Witnesses say a man in the SUV opened fire, shooting Richiez in the head, before fleeing the scene. Richiez was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest where he was pronounced dead at 10:14 p.m.
“It is the worst phone call that you can receive,” said Richiez’s father, Teofilo Nunez. “This is really, really painful. I cannot describe what I feel inside.”
After the shooting, a woman in the Land Rover told investigators she saw Christian Diaz-Dejesus placing "what appeared to be a handgun into his waistband," the district attorney said in a news release.
Police in Winslow Township, New Jersey took Diaz-Dejesus into custody without incident Wednesday night, Martin said. The 25-year-old faces a criminal homicide charge once he is extradited back to Lehigh County.
Martin said the incident wasn't gang-related, drug-related nor a "road-rage incident."
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Prosecutors say someone had earlier taken a boy's cellphone away amid texting between him and a girl that was "deemed inappropriate." An argument erupted when three men and a woman went to return the phone, and one person was hit with a pistol in an 11th Street home.
Allentown Police Chief Glen Dorney said Thursday the death could have been prevented if police were called sooner.
A memorial was made for Richiez at the intersection where he was killed.
Nunez says he wants justice for his son.
“The feeling that there is nothing that you can do to bring him back,” Nunez said. “The guy who did that, he’ll have to pay for that.”
