The teenage girl who died at a Milwaukee Burger King earlier this month was allegedly part of a staged robbery, Fox 6 Milwaukee reports.
Investigators believe the 16-year-old girl, Niesha Harris-Brazell, who was fatally shot during the robbery, hatched the plan with her best friend, Mariah Edwards, and her best friend’s father, Antoine Edwards.
Harris-Brazell was working as a cashier on Jan. 2 with Edwareds, who was working in the kitchen. According to a criminal complaint, surveillance footage shows a black Chevy Impala driving up to the window. Harris-Brazell goes to serve the person when the driver brandishes a gun and demands money.
As Harris-Brazell gathers cash from the register, she also seemingly indicates to her coworkers that she needs help. Video shows the thief lifting himself through the drive-thru window with a gun in one hand. But suddenly, when shots are fired, the robber flees the scene without the money, and Harris-Brazell drops to the ground. She was transported to a hospital where she was declared dead.
Another camera from inside the restaurant showed that it wasn’t Antoine Edwards who shot her, but one of her coworkers, Derrick Ellis. When Harris-Brazell called for help during the robbery, Ellis took out a gun, and fired it twice. Though he was aiming at Edwards, he accidentally shot Harris-Brazell instead.
“After I heard the shots go off, I ran to the front and I see my best friend on the floor just laying there saying she got shot,” Edwards told the outlet.
Footage also shows Ellis going into distress, with the restaurant’s manager helping to stash the gun in the store’s safe before Ellis takes off. Ellis—who is apparently a convicted felon—is still on the run and has since been charged with murder.
Antoine Edwards has been charged with felony murder, intentionally contributing to the delinquency of a child and death is consequence, and possession of a firearm by a felon. His bond has since been set at $100,000 for the first two offenses, and $5,000 for the possession offense.
His daughter has also been arrested after confessing to crafting the scheme with her father and best friend. According to the complaint, Mariah said that while Harris-Brazell was in on the plan, Ellis wasn’t. However, Antoine has alleged that his daughter wasn’t involved in the botched robbery and only Harris-Brazell was. Her mother has dismissed that idea, saying her daughter didn’t participate in the scheme.
“It’s really making me mad, it’s making me angry. You told so many different lies, now you’re going to tell more lies. That’s not going to help you. That’s not going to help your father,” she told Fox 6.
Harris-Brazell’s family has launched a GoFundMe campaign for support, which raised just over $40,000.
