PORTSMOUTH — A man accused of murdering a woman in his Portsmouth apartment says the shooting was accidental.
Darryl Faine, 54, is charged with murdering 26-year-old Monique Landis in his Gateway Drive apartment on Dec. 1, 2015.
Darryl Faine fled Virginia after the shooting — but not before leaving a note for his daughter.
Adquena Faine testified Friday that she found the note in her father’s car, which was parked outside of her Norfolk home in December 2015. The note said that Landis was playing with the gun in Darryl Faine’s apartment, pointing it at his forehead while he was on the couch.
Then, she pointed it at herself. Darryl Faine said he tried to get the gun away from her, but it went off — accidentally killing Landis.
“I panicked. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how,” Faine wrote in the note, adding that his daughter should contact the police.
Police searched for Faine for more than two years before he was arrested during a traffic stop in Jacksonville, Florida. Authorities said he’d been living under the alias “Carl Jones” and working under-the-table jobs.
Faine was charged with Landis’ murder, as well as reckless handling of a firearm, being a felon in possession of ammunition and being a nonviolent felon in possession of a firearm.
His lawyer, Matt Johnson, said that the shooting was accidental and that Faine fled because he was afraid he’d be accused of killing Landis. Johnson also pointed to a toxicology report that showed Landis had cocaine and alcohol in her system at the time of her death.
“We have a case of accidental death,” Johnson said. “The evidence tht they present is a tragic accident. Nothing more.”
Portsmouth prosecutor Almetia Hardman said parts of Faine’s note didn’t add up to the physical evidence left behind.
Hardman said that Landis was shot in the forehead and that the gun was held with “some force” to her skull, leaving a muzzle imprint. She also pointed to drag marks left in the home after Landis’ body had been moved.
A Portsmouth judge certified all of the charges against Faine. A grand jury will hear his case and decide if it should go to trial.