May 3, 2021- 10:17 p.m.
The brother of a slain Olympic boxer carried out a revenge killing — against an innocent man, Texas police claim.
Norman Christopher Collier IV, 22, is facing capital murder charges after he believed false social media rumors surrounding the killing, according to DeSoto PD.
On April 22, the body of his 19-year-old younger brother Camran Kashawn Collier was found in the driver’s seat of a 2013 Honda Accord parked on Westlake Drive. The Marine and Junior Olympics competitor had been shot dead.
Witnesses told investigators they had heard gunshots and saw a man exiting the vehicle and fleeing the scene; but no arrests were made.
However three days later, a balloon release ceremony was held to celebrate the life of Camran at Eagle Drive; at the memorial, police say Norman walked up to another participant — 20-year-old Kolby Marquise Graham — and shot him in the head. He initially survived the shooting, but died several days later at hospital.
Despite several witnesses, nobody came forward with any information to police.Nevertheless, days later police had their suspect.
They determined Graham had been “mistakenly identified as Camran’s killer on several social media postings.”
In a release, they said the older brother “mistakenly believed the internet rumors about the identity of his brother’s killer.
Norman Collier then took revenge against the wrong man at his brother’s balloon release ceremony.”Norman is now in Dallas County Jail on a $1million bond, charged with capital murder.
The real suspect in his brother’s murder is still on the loose, police say: he is described as a Black man with short dreadlocks, last seen wearing a gray hoodie and jeans.
Camran meanwhile is being remembered as a kind-hearted activist, and a devastating loss of potential to the military and boxing community alike.
According to Dallas News, he had twice reached national Junior Olympics, and had just completed bootcamp with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.”This kid was going somewhere,” one of his coaches, Ruben Ysasi, told the site. “We’re all taking it pretty hard.
It’s just unfortunate that it happened to a kid like that. He was just a very good kid.””He was probably too good of a person to be a boxer,” he added.
“He didn’t have that mean, angry heart in him to try to really go and hurt someone.”The day before he was killed, he had put out a call on Facebook for other young Black men in his community with aspirations like him.
“I wanna create a community of hustlers and entrepreneurs in the Dallas area that can get together and talk about ideas, help each other elevate their businesses, etc.” he wrote in his final post.
