The woman told investigators she heard popping sounds from the patio before seeing her nephew holding a gun and her boyfriend mortally wounded.
AUSTIN, Texas — The killing of Tyrell Pordia unfolded within steps of a family home, according to an arrest affidavit, leaving one woman to describe investigators a sudden sequence in which her boyfriend walked onto a patio, gunfire followed and her nephew appeared outside holding a weapon.
Pordia, 35, died Aug. 29 after he was shot at a residence in the 11700 block of Timber Heights Drive in Northeast Austin. Police charged the woman’s nephew, 21-year-old Joitorian Bouye, with first-degree murder. The case drew attention in part because of what detectives say Bouye told them later: that Pordia gave him “bad vibes” and that he believed Pordia wanted him dead. But the account from inside the home provides another way to understand the case, beginning not with Bouye’s interview but with the people who were present when an ordinary residential setting turned into a crime scene.
According to the affidavit as reported by KXAN, Bouye’s aunt told investigators she was in the kitchen before the shooting. Pordia, her boyfriend, went outside to the patio. She then heard popping sounds. When she went outside to see what had happened, she said she saw Bouye holding a firearm and yelling about “trafficking.” The affidavit describes her as repeatedly asking why her nephew would have done it. Her statement captures the immediate shock of the scene, but investigators’ public records provide little additional information about the aunt, and her name has not been necessary to explain the case.
Other people nearby supplied investigators with a broader account of the lead-up. Witnesses familiar with Bouye told police they heard him arguing with Pordia about trafficking before gunfire erupted, according to the affidavit. That argument provides context for what the aunt said she heard Bouye yelling afterward, but authorities have not announced evidence that Pordia was involved in trafficking. Bouye himself later denied knowing that Pordia was engaged in trafficking, according to the detective’s summary. The available record therefore supports that the topic arose during the dispute, not that the accusation underlying the dispute was true.
The first emergency response began at 5:34 p.m., when Austin police said officers were sent to Timber Heights Drive on a call initially classified as a shooting or stabbing emergency. The caller reported that a man had a gun and that someone had been shot. Officers found Pordia suffering from gunshot trauma that police said was incompatible with life. He was pronounced dead at 5:53 p.m. The department later identified the killing as Austin’s 38th homicide of 2026. Police said the victim and the accused shooter knew each other, reducing concern that an unknown gunman was moving through the neighborhood.
Witnesses told officers that the suspect had fled the property. According to the affidavit, Bouye’s aunt saw him jump a fence after the shooting. Responding officers spread into the surrounding area and located him about half a mile away near Worn Sole Drive. Police said the arrest occurred without incident. Investigators reported finding a handgun along with 9 mm and .223/5.56 mm ammunition in his possession. They did not publicly describe him as carrying the rifle they believe was used to shoot Pordia when officers encountered him.
Back at the home, the physical investigation was developing separately from the search. Austin police said homicide detectives and Austin Forensic Science crime scene specialists responded. The arrest affidavit states that officers found several fired rifle cartridge casings. A detective described the casings as a caliber commonly used by AR-15-style rifles. The discovery helped shape investigators’ understanding of the shooting before they questioned Bouye. Police have not publicly released a full forensic report, however, and the reviewed records do not say whether a specific rifle was scientifically matched to the fired casings.
After the arrest, detectives took Bouye to the homicide office and questioned him after advising him of his rights, according to the affidavit. Austin police said he admitted shooting Pordia. The detective’s summary added that Bouye allegedly identified the gun as an AR-15-style rifle and said he had discarded it before police found him. He reportedly explained that he feared officers would shoot him if he still had the rifle when they approached. Police have not publicly specified where investigators later found the weapon or whether they recovered it at all.
The interview shifted the investigation from what witnesses had seen and heard to what police say Bouye claimed he was thinking. According to the affidavit, he said Pordia gave him “bad vibes” and that he believed the older man wanted him dead. Publicly reported records do not identify a specific threat by Pordia immediately before the shooting, nor do they establish that Pordia was armed. The statements therefore describe Bouye’s reported perception rather than an independently confirmed danger. Whether prosecutors or a defense attorney later place legal significance on those statements is a matter for the court process.
Bouye also told detectives that he suffers from schizophrenia and paranoia, according to the affidavit. That information has been widely repeated because it appeared in the investigator’s account, but the public sources reviewed for this story do not contain medical documentation verifying his statement. Authorities have not said a mental illness caused the shooting. Criminal cases involving mental-health claims can require separate medical evidence and legal findings, and no such determination is established by the reports describing Bouye’s arrest interview.
For Pordia’s family and those who were at the home, the legal questions came only after the immediate loss. Police pronounced Pordia dead less than 20 minutes after the first reported call time. The department’s release gives his date of birth as May 6, 1991, but offers no biography, employment history or other personal background. That absence is common in early police notices, which are designed to identify the deceased and explain the status of an investigation rather than provide a full portrait of the person who died.
The relationship among the people at the home is central to why police quickly told the public there was no broader threat associated with the shooting. Pordia was Bouye’s aunt’s boyfriend, and witnesses knew the accused shooter. Police said Bouye was located and detained shortly after fleeing. CBS Austin later reported that he was held on a $250,000 bond at the Travis County Correctional Complex. The murder charge means prosecutors accuse him of unlawfully causing Pordia’s death, but the filing is not a finding of guilt.
The aunt’s account remains one of the clearest windows into the seconds surrounding the shooting because it connects the interior of the home, the sounds from the patio and Bouye’s alleged presence outside. Yet it also shows the limits of eyewitness evidence: The publicly reported affidavit does not say that she saw the shots fired. Investigators have instead assembled the case from several pieces — her observations, other witnesses’ account of the argument, fired casings, Bouye’s arrest nearby and statements police say he made after being taken into custody.
Austin police continue to classify the matter as a homicide investigation and have asked anyone with additional information to contact the department. No reviewed public record establishes the trafficking allegation as fact, and no final court judgment resolving the murder accusation was located. Bouye is accused of killing Pordia and remains entitled to challenge the evidence, while the aunt’s account stands as a witness statement within a criminal case that has not yet been adjudicated.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.