A man released early from prison on felony gun charges allegedly shot three people, one fatally, when they stopped to help his apparently disabled vehicle on Christmas Eve, Michigan authorities said.
The rampage ended a rapid-fire crime spree that police said was “random” while the suspect was “just passing through the community” of Oxford, Mich. around 6:20 p.m. Tuesday.
Malik Letroy Webb, 29, was charged Saturday with 19 counts, including felony murder in the death of 71-year-old psychologist and teacher Barbara Wolf. He was being held without bail pending a Jan. 6 court appearance.
“These charges in this case involve seven different victims during a series of incidents that all happened in rapid succession,” the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement after Webb’s Saturday arraignment.
Also wounded were a 56-year-old Oxford man who was shot in the arm when he also stopped to assist, and Wolf’s 38-year-old daughter, who was a passenger in her car, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Wolf died later at a hospital. The other victims were expected to recover, the sheriff’s office said.
Webb had pulled into a parking lot and slammed into a pole twice, the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office said, pointing a handgun at two women, aged 28 and 54, who stopped to ask if he was ok. Webb then took off and veered into a tree, prosecutors said. Several good Samaritans pulled over to help, but armed with a handgun, he accosted each one, trying to get into their vehicles.
“This was a senseless murder and rampage, terrorizing seven different victims,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a statement, calling it “devastating for our entire community, even more so because it happened during the middle of the holidays. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
“This vile and disturbing violent act is so heinous on multiple levels, and the suspect deserves to be held fully accountable and never see the light of day,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a statement.
Investigators hope to determine why Webb — who was serving time for gun charges and also was convicted of another gun crime while in prison for the first one — had been released two years shy of his original 7½-year sentence and discharged from parole on Jan. 1, 2024, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Webb now could face life without the possibility of parole on the murder charge alone.
