Two killers who gunned down a man as he played football in the street with friends have been convicted of murder after West Midlands Police detectives traced them from a bloodied tissue found in their stolen getaway car.
20-year-old Sharn Miles and 19-year-old Ty Blake shot James Teer in the face at point-blank range with a shotgun on the evening of 8 August last year.
The 20-year-old, who had been having a kick-around in Goosemoor Lane in Erdington with teenage friends sadly died at the scene yards from his front door.
James was just weeks away from his 21st birthday.
Shockingly just 20 minutes after shooting a man in cold blood they are seen on CCTV casually walking into a takeaway and ordering chicken and chips.
West Midlands Police launched a murder enquiry and in the early hours of the following morning found a BMW M Sport used in the drive-by shooting abandoned in Small Heath.
A blood-stained tissue was inside the car which returned a DNA hit to Blake and officers arrested him six days later.
It’s understood Blake from Shard End suffered a cut lip during the killing when the shotgun recoiled into his mouth. He used the toilet paper to dab away the blood.
Detectives conducted a painstaking trawl of CCTV and plotted the BMW’s route over several miles from Erdington to Miles’ home in Alum Rock.
They seized more clips showing the car earlier in the day before the pair had a chance to fit it with cloned number plates.
That led them to the owner’s address in Leicester where the car had been stolen in the early hours of 8 August. An examination of phone records showed mobiles linked to Blake and Miles were active near the burgled house at the time.
Miles fled the country through Dover port shortly after the killing but was arrested on 13 August having returned to the UK.
Blake was arrested from his home two days later. A Nike tracksuit matching that worn by one offender was found in his house along with the wooden butt of a shotgun and five shotgun cartridges in a shed.
Enquiries also identified Coventry woman Lauren Malin, aged 20 from Aldermoor Green, was involved in the car theft and drove Blake from Coventry to Birmingham shortly before the shooting.
All three were charged with Mr Teer’s murder and at Birmingham Crown Court today (04/03) Blake and Miles were found guilty of murder and burglary. They will be sentenced tomorrow.
Malin was cleared of murder but convicted of burglary.
West Midlands Police Detective Chief Inspector Scott Griffiths, said: “This was a callous and shocking assassination of a decent young man. He was shot while playing in the street with friends. One moment he was playing football and the next he’d been killed.
“He was with teenagers, some of school age, at the time and some of these witnessed the point-blank shooting. They are experiencing ongoing trauma from witnessing what happened and of course James’ friends and families are devastated.
“The motive was initially unclear but we later understood Miles had an altercation with some men in a Birmingham nightclub a week before the shooting.
“Mr Teer was not directly involved in that, very much on the periphery, but it appears Miles and Blake were intent on causing serious harm to anyone linked to the group. Sadly James was the first person they came across on the day.
“I hope these guilty verdicts will come as some comfort for James’ family and I wish them all the best in their continued recovery from this tragic event.”
