Opinion ID: 2755588
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Elias Atkins Murder

Text: According to Michael Matthews’s grand jury testimony, in the months following the Kenyon Street robbery, Cheadle became concerned about the possibility that Atkins “might tell.” On March 11, 2003, six months after the 5 Kenyon Street incident, Cheadle and Matthews visited Atkins at the apartment of Arlene Morris, where Atkins was staying. During the visit, Cheadle, Matthews, and Atkins conferred in Morris’s son’s bedroom, while Morris was in another room. Morris testified that, shortly thereafter, she heard shots being fired in her son’s room. She looked out into the hallway and saw Matthews fleeing from her son’s room with nothing in his hands. After hearing more gunshots coming from her son’s room, she hid in a closet, emerging later to find Atkins’s body on the floor. Matthews told the grand jury that he saw Cheadle pull out a gun and ran out of the apartment after he heard a shot. Cheadle later told Matthews that he (Cheadle) shot Atkins again after Atkins ran out of the room and that Matthews should “say nothing” about the incident.