Investigators recovered a firearm, cartridge cases and other evidence after a shooting that killed Zion and Sadie Terry and wounded their mother.
RICHMOND, Va. — Cartridge cases, bullets, a firearm, DNA samples and a phone were among the evidence Richmond investigators collected from a Highland Park home after a shooting that killed two teenage siblings and wounded their mother, court records show.
The evidence is part of a case that has changed substantially since police first responded to the 3100 block of 5th Avenue on April 21. Levy Nelson, 41, was initially arrested on charges tied to the shooting of Tiffany Terry. As investigators continued their work and 14-year-old Sadie Terry died from her injuries, a grand jury returned a broader indictment accusing Nelson of crimes that include aggravated murder. Sadie’s 18-year-old brother, Zion Terry, died on the day of the shooting. Police have said Sadie was Nelson’s daughter and that Nelson had been in a relationship with Tiffany Terry. Nelson has since been found competent to stand trial, which is scheduled for April 19, 2027.
The first minutes of the investigation began shortly before 10 a.m. Police have said one of the victims called 911 from the home near Burns Street and 5th Avenue. Officers and detectives arriving there encountered a scene that later became the subject of a search warrant. According to local reporting based on the warrant, one victim was found inside the foyer, where investigators also observed indications of gunfire. Zion died at the scene. Tiffany and Sadie were taken to a hospital. Tiffany survived. Sadie remained hospitalized until April 24, when she died, leaving investigators with two homicide victims from the same shooting.
Police did not find Nelson at the house. Authorities circulated information seeking help locating him and the vehicle they believed he was using. He was arrested in Henrico County hours later. At that stage, the publicly announced charges included malicious wounding and use of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Those early counts reflected an investigation that was still developing. Police and prosecutors later added allegations after Sadie’s death and after the case was presented to a Richmond grand jury.
The resulting circuit court case is considerably broader. Local court reporting has said Nelson was indicted on two aggravated murder counts, aggravated malicious wounding, multiple firearm counts, child abuse and neglect, and allegations connected to his status as a convicted violent felon. Other reporting described the principal murder allegation as aggravated murder involving multiple people. The precise charging language matters because the prosecution must prove the elements of each offense, not merely establish that a shooting occurred. Nelson is presumed innocent unless proved guilty, and the indictment represents the government’s accusations rather than a judicial finding that he committed them.
The procedural history became briefly confusing when two charges were dismissed in Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in May. Those dismissals did not mean prosecutors had abandoned the underlying shooting allegations. Local reporting showed that one malicious-wounding count and a firearm count were dropped from the lower-court docket because Nelson had already been indicted on equivalent charges in Richmond Circuit Court. The action prevented overlapping cases from continuing in two courts while leaving the more serious circuit court prosecution intact. Nelson continued to face the homicide, assault, firearm and related allegations returned by the grand jury.
The search warrant offers the clearest public glimpse so far of what detectives physically documented inside the house. Investigators seized spent cartridge cases and bullets, a firearm, DNA swabs, a phone and other objects. The inventory also included a knife and additional biological or physical items taken during the search. A list of seized property cannot establish by itself who used an item or what role it played. Public reports do not disclose laboratory results, ballistic comparisons or a complete reconstruction of the shooting. Those gaps are important because the evidentiary meaning of an object depends on what witnesses, forensic testing and other admissible evidence can establish about it.
Authorities have also not publicly provided a verified motive. Reports have described the incident as domestic violence, and officials have said Nelson and Tiffany Terry had been in a relationship. Police Chief Rick Edwards said officers had not previously responded to that residence for a domestic violence call, according to local reports. Investigators have not released a detailed account of what happened between the people inside the home immediately before the shots were fired. Some reporting has referred to an argument, but the publicly available record does not establish enough about its substance to explain the killings. The absence of that information leaves motive among the questions that may receive closer attention as the case approaches trial.
Separate from the forensic investigation, Richmond police officially recorded Zion’s death and that of a juvenile female among the city’s 2026 homicides at the 5th Avenue address. Zion was 18 and a senior at John Marshall High School. School officials said he had a 4.4 GPA, was active in school programs and expected to attend Winston-Salem State University to study nursing. Sadie was an eighth grader at Thomas H. Henderson Middle School, where she served as a peer mentor and was remembered by her principal for greeting him at the school entrance. Family members said she had talked about pursuing engineering and military service.
Those details entered the public story while detectives were still processing evidence and prosecutors were determining what charges the facts could support. Days after Zion’s death, classmates named him prom king. Later, his school prepared to recognize him at graduation. At Henderson, signs and messages remembered Sadie and her brother. Their joint funeral was held May 9 at John Marshall High School. The family’s grief unfolded at the same time that the criminal case was moving from an initial arrest through grand-jury review and into circuit court.
Tiffany Terry, who survived the shooting, has asked the public to remember her children for their lives rather than for the circumstances of their deaths. She described Zion as a son who made her proud and spoke about Sadie as her only daughter, recalling both teenagers’ plans. Her survival also makes the prosecution different from a case built only on forensic evidence after a fatal shooting. Public reporting has not disclosed the full substance of what she may have told investigators, and it would be premature to assume what testimony she could give if called at trial.
The case’s most recent major procedural development came Aug. 20, when a competency evaluation was returned in Richmond Circuit Court and Nelson was found competent to proceed. The ruling cleared the way for the scheduled 2027 trial but did not decide any of the allegations. Competency concerns whether a defendant can understand the court process and participate in a defense. Guilt or innocence will be determined separately through the criminal proceedings, where prosecutors must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and Nelson’s defense may challenge witnesses, forensic evidence and the legal sufficiency of the charges.
The nearly seven-month gap between the competency ruling and the scheduled trial leaves time for additional pretrial litigation, though no specific motions or hearings beyond those publicly reported should be assumed. The most important unresolved factual questions remain the same ones raised in the first days after the shooting: what happened inside the home immediately before the gunfire, how investigators connect the seized evidence to each charged offense and what evidence prosecutors say establishes Nelson’s role in the deaths and Tiffany Terry’s injuries.
Nelson remains charged in Richmond Circuit Court, with trial set for April 19, 2027. No verdict has been entered and no motive has been established publicly. The evidence recovered from the Highland Park house now sits within a prosecution that began with an emergency response, widened after a second teenager died and is moving toward the point where the government’s allegations will be tested in court.
Author note: Last updated September 29, 2026.