A 16-year-old girl who was found dead in a car crash was reportedly shot and killed by her boyfriend, a 27-year-old man who was also married to her aunt.
According to investigators, Dominique Pittman reportedly admitted to shooting his niece, Evalyce Santiago, when the two of them got into a fight about their sexual relationship.
Pittman was driving when Santiago threatened to tell her aunt, who is also her adopted sister, about their relationship. At that point, Pittman reached for a gun that he had in the car, and the two of them fought over the weapon.
Pittman claimed that in the course of the fight, he accidentally shot Santiago once in the hand and twice in the head.
Shortly after the shots were fired, Pittman veered off the road and crashed the car. When police arrived to find the car wrapped around a telephone pole, Pittman at first tried to say that Santiago’s boyfriend had been in the car and then jumped out, but he changed his story to say that Santiago had been shot when they got into an argument over money.
Finally, he admitted to the relationship when police brought up the possibility that Santiago was pregnant and that they had found traces of his DNA.
Pittman was officially arraigned on Wednesday and charged with murder as well as carrying a pistol without a permit and weapons in a motor vehicle.
Family members were completely shocked by the murder as well as the relationship, with a fight even breaking out at one point in the courthouse.
“He was my son in law. I just want the truth,” Francisco Rivera, the grandfather and adoptive father of Santiago said. “He was dating my daughter and he has three kids with my other daughter.”
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