2022 Milwaukee homicide: Keshawn Rowsey guilty, jury rules
MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee County jury found Keshawn Rowsey guilty on Tuesday, Feb. 7 of first-degree intentional homicide in the April 2022 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Leah Davis near 66th and Lisbon.
Rowsey is scheduled to be sentenced on March 27.
Case details
According to the criminal complaint, Milwaukee police responded to a shooting near 66th and Lisbon on April 23. When officers arrived on the scene, the complaint says officers were met by the defendant, Keshawn Rowsey, who also called 911. The defendant said, "I called. She's right up here." Officers went to the apartment -- and located a woman who had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. That woman was later identified as Leah Davis. Despite lifesaving measures, Davis died from her injuries.
The complaint indicates investigators spoke with a friend of the victim and who is also familiar with Rowsey. The friend told police "she received a phone call from the defendant and he told her, '(Leah Davis') apartment got shot up eight times.' (The friend) asked the defendant if he was sure and he said, 'I heard them shooting and I ran.'" The friend then called 911 to get police to the residence.
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This same person told police Davis and Rowsey had been dating since fall 2020 -- and had a "rocky" relationship. The person said "the defendant was possessive and overprotective" of Davis and that they had broken up just three weeks ago. She also told police "in September 2021 the defendant made threats to kill (the victim) and even said that he purchased a gun to do so," the complaint says.
Milwaukee homicide scene near 66th and Lisbon
Another person who spoke with police said on the day of the shooting, she could hear the defendant knocking on Davis' door and saying, "Let me in." She told police she "continued to hear knocking and then the knocking stopped and she heard three gunshots," the complaint says.
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Another neighbor of Davis provided investigators with a similar recounting of the events. However, about ten minutes after the shooting, this neighbor said she heard the defendant in the hallway near Davis' apartment -- she believed he was on the phone. The neighbor "could hear the defendant crying and saying that someone killed (Leah Davis)," the complaint says.
The complaint says a friend of the defendant also spoke with police. He told investigators Rowsey "called him and told him that 'LD got shot.'" When the friend responded by asking what Rowsey did, the complaint says "the defendant told him that he shot LD," the complaint says.