*A man accused of starting a shootout that killed two Southern University students was arrested on murder charges Thursday, although police don’t believe he fired the deadly shots, reports The AP.
Brandon Christopher Henderson, 25, of Baton Rouge told investigators that he fired the first shots in the exchange of gunfire that killed 19-year-old students Lashuntae Benton and Annette January at an off-campus party in April, a police report says.
Henderson, who was wounded in the April 10 shootout, was a student at Southern until the spring of 2014. He was jailed on two counts of second-degree murder and one count of illegal use of a weapon.
Another suspect — 22-year-old Ernest Bernard Felton, of Miami — was arrested for shooting Henderson and charged with attempted second-degree murder. But Felton, a former Southern football player, has not been charged in the deaths of Benton and January, whom police have described as “innocent bystanders” caught in the crossfire.
Police said in a written statement Thursday that their case remains under investigation with “additional pending arrests.”
Meanwhile, a police report dated Thursday said investigators don’t believe Henderson fired the shots that killed the two students.
Marks on the bullets recovered from the women’s bodies didn’t match the type of handgun that Henderson “conceded” firing, according to the report. Marks on a bullet taken from Henderson’s body indicate he was shot by the same type of weapon that fired the bullets that killed the women, the report adds.
Benton, a sophomore from Lake Charles, Louisiana, was a student athletic trainer at Southern. January, a freshman from Gary, Indiana, was on Southern’s track and field team.
An initial police report on the shooting said people had gathered at a party outside an apartment complex near LSU’s campus when Henderson pulled up in a car. The initial report said a witness told police that Felton had initiated the shooting by firing at the sedan driven by Henderson.
However, the new police report says Henderson told investigators Thursday that he “fired the first shots that initiated the shooting exchange.” Earlier, Henderson told police that he only began firing shots into the air from the driver’s side window of his car after he was shot, according to the new report.
Henderson also told police that the deadly encounter followed an earlier fight between his brother and a group of people at the apartment complex, the new report said.
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