PORTLAND — Police arrested an Oregon man accused of fatally shooting a friend in retaliation for a gun deal in which he was robbed.
Rees Dikeos, 20, of Lake Oswego was arrested in Las Vegas this week, according to the Newberg-Dundee Police Department. He was later booked into the Yamhill County Jail on a murder charge.
A second suspect, Mark Gonzalez, 27, of Beaverton has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
The victim, Jack Burnell, 20, was killed Jan. 12 in an alley near a Newberg supermarket.
Detective Joe Eubanks said in a probable cause affidavit that investigators learned from a confidential source that Dikeos had been robbed a night earlier during a Salem gun deal in which shots were fired.
The source said Dikeos felt Burnell had set him up to be robbed, and he admitted to the Jan. 12 shooting of Burnell.
The day after the gun deal went sour, a witness who knew Burnell said he had gone to the supermarket to meet an old friend who goes by the name “white man,” and he seemed nervous about the meeting. Through Burnell’s phone, detectives learned that Dikeos uses the Facebook moniker of “Hwhite Mahn.”
Messages found on the phone outlined a plan for Burnell and Dikeos to meet at the supermarket on the night of the homicide, and the messages continued through the evening.
“In the messages Mr. Dikeos tells Mr. Burnell that he is almost there,” Eubanks wrote.
Dikeos made a Facebook phone call to Burnell at 11:37 p.m., and the call lasted nearly two minutes, the affidavit states. Video surveillance from the supermarket’s bottle return area shows people reacting to gunfire just before 11:40 p.m.
Eubanks said a comparison of .45-caliber casings recovered from the Burnell homicide and the Salem shooting show they were from the same gun. Moreover, a phone recovered at the Salem scene belonged to Dikeos.
Carol Fredrick, the defendant’s court-appointed attorney, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Friday. Dikeos was being held without bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on an indictment June 7.
Officer Brian Hagen said Gonzalez was arrested at home Thursday. Detectives have yet to detail his alleged involvement. It’s unknown if he has an attorney or will be provided one at his initial court appearance.
