RACINE — At a county jail in Tennessee, a Racine man reportedly became emotional with a task force investigator who was explaining some paperwork that would send him back to Wisconsin.
Ryan G. King had turned himself in on Jan. 17 to the 18th Judicial District Drug Task Force investigator who stopped his sport utility vehicle in Millersville, Tenn. The convicted felon allegedly had confessed to having a gun beneath the driver’s seat.
But at the Sumner County Jail, King uttered “words to the effect of ‘my baby — I killed my baby,’ ” according to the criminal complaint, which Racine County prosecutors released for the first time on Wednesday.
King, 46, of the 1400 block of West Sixth Street, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and possession of a firearm by a felon in the Jan. 17 death of his girlfriend, Lucinda White, 44.
King sat silently Wednesday, at times with his head in his hand, as Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set his bond at $500,000 cash during his initial appearance on those charges.
Racine County District Attorney Rich Chiapete said King chased White down on the night of Jan. 16 and shot her in the street, execution style.
“Mr. King basically hunted the victim down in a busy Downtown street,” Chiapete said in court.
King tried to shoot his girlfriend with one gun, Chiapete said. But “when that gun jammed up, he used the other gun to basically execute her.”
White’s death marks Racine’s first homicide of the year.
The Racine woman called one of her sisters at about 10:30 p.m. Jan. 16, saying she and her boyfriend “were getting into it,” according to the complaint. When White’s sister arrived at her home, in the 700 block of Villa Street, the residence was dark and White didn’t respond when she honked the horn. So she left.
But when police later arrived to check on White, officers found her lying in the middle of Sixth Street, suffering from a gunshot wound to her forehead, according to investigators. A witness reportedly told police that before they arrived, she heard two loud noises and a woman yelled “I (expletive) love you” before a man put a gun to the woman’s head and fired.
Autopsy results show White died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Assistant State Public Defender Ahmed Jenkins asked for “a reasonable cash bond” on Wednesday, saying King has worked at Racine Community Action for two years and has a degree in early childhood education.
Authorities extradited King back to Racine, and he only arrived at the Racine County Jail Tuesday morning, jail booking records show. Millersville, Tenn., is 531 miles from Racine.
White was shot near the 600 block of Sixth Street, according to Racine police. Officers responded at about 10:45 p.m. for reports of a person who was down and found White lying in the middle of the road — with the gunshot wound to her head and two in her arm, the complaint said.
She was pronounced dead the next day, at about 7:30 p.m., police have said.
King’s arrest in Tennessee came just a handful of hours before White died from her injuries, reports show.
King’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 7. Rudebusch ordered him to “have no contact whatsoever” with White’s family.
About a dozen people attended King’s initial appearance, but none wanted to comment after the hearing.
Chiapete said White’s domestic violence-related death is too familiar, similar to other recent cases.
“It’s obviously concerning to us that it’s another domestic violence-related homicide,” Chiapete said after the hearing. “We take these matters as seriously as any cases out there.”
But he said he couldn’t comment on whether police have ever been called to either of their homes for domestic-related incidents in the past.
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