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Police: Woman tried to throw off Iowa City murder investigation
Brooklyn Draisey
Jun. 14, 2020 4:37 pm, Updated: Jun. 15, 2020 8:29 am
To throw them off the trail, an Iowa City woman lied to investigators about where she had driven a man wanted in the April 20 murder of Kejuan Winters, authorities said in court records.
Whitney Claybon, 30, of Iowa City, was arrested Saturday and faces charges of obstruction of prosecution or defense and being an accessory after the fact, both aggravated misdemeanors.
Police had responded at 9:55 a.m. April 20 to a report of a shooting at 1960 Broadway St. in Iowa City, where they found Winters, 21, who had been shot multiple times. He died in the apartment.
According to an arrest affidavit, Claybon told detectives she knew about a plan to rob Winters and knew who was involved. She said she took one of the suspects to Chicago to get him away from the scene.
But that suspect - Patrick Bland, 32, of Rockford, Ill. - was arrested May 19 in Minneapolis, not Chicago, He faces a first-degree murder count.
Authorities said in an affidavit that Claybon rented a car with someone else's license to take the suspect of out the area. She was captured on surveillance video of being with Bland at a Minnesota truck stop, the record states.
'Claybon went lengths to get the murder (defendant) out of town and then purposefully lied to detectives to throw us off,” the affidavit states.
Bland was the 'principal” in the shooting, police said, as the gun he owned illegally was used in the shooting and his cellphone was left at the scene. Durojaiya A. Rosa, 22, of Iowa City, and Reginald Little, 44, also face first-degree murder charges in the shooting.
Little was found in Texas. Jordan R. Hogan, 21, of Iowa City, has been charged with obstruction of prosecution after police say he helped Little avoid arrest.
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