During a Thursday commitment hearing in Magistrate Court, a Macon police detective said the person being held on murder and aggravated assault charges in a Dec. 9 shooting in the parking lot of the Waffle House on Chambers Road wasn’t the same person who fatally shot 20-year-old Christopher Crowder.

Detective Dennis Terry testified that while investigators believe Ashley De’Mun Brown, 19, was the instigator of the incident and brought the weapons used, investigators think a second person fired the fatal shot. Brown is suspected of shooting three other individuals who were wounded in the parking lot during the incident, Terry said.

Brown voluntarily turned himself in to authorities on Dec. 11 on the advice of his attorney, Veronica Brinson, and his grandmother.

According to police, Crowder was shot to death following some sort of argument early that morning, the details of which aren’t clear.

Brinson said Thursday she is still building Brown’s defense. She maintains that Brown didn’t shoot Crowder nor anyone else during the incident.

Initially, police identified two other victims who were wounded -- Xavier Phelps, 20, and Chanteira Granville, 19 -- during the incident, but Terry said Thursday a third victim also was wounded.

He didn’t identify the victim.

Brinson asked in court if there was video evidence that Brown shot Crowder. Terry replied that there was video evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, that Brown was the instigator of the incident and brought the weapons used, and that he fired at the other victims.

She said she wants to see the witness statements and video the police collected.

Brison said she is in the process of getting her own statements from other witnesses who have told her that Brown wasn’t the shooter. She said some of those witnesses were too nervous or afraid to come forward.

Terry said police are still searching for the other suspect in this case.

Brinson declined to say if Brown knows the other individual for whom the police are searching or if the weapons used during the shooting belonged to him.

She said she had spoken with Brown’s family about Crowder’s death.

“The family is very remorseful about the death of Christopher Crowder and wants to give his family their condolences,” she said.

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Phillip Ramati, call 744-4334.