A criminal complaint says two boys had been gaming with their cousin before an ownership argument between adults escalated into deadly violence.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — The first officer to reach a West Keefe Avenue home after a Sept. 4 shooting found two young boys and a teenage girl screaming on the front porch. Inside, police found 37-year-old Marris Virgil mortally wounded. Prosecutors now allege the violence grew from a dispute over the PlayStation the boys had been using.
The children’s presence connects the beginning and aftermath of the confrontation described in a criminal complaint against Darrius S. Shelton, 21. Before the shooting, Virgil’s 10- and 11-year-old sons had been playing PlayStation games with Shelton, their cousin, according to the statement Virgil’s long-term partner gave detectives. After the gunfire, officers found children outside while Virgil lay wounded in a second-floor bedroom. Shelton was later charged with first-degree reckless homicide and was being sought on an arrest warrant. Authorities have not reported that the children were physically injured.
According to the partner, she and Virgil arrived at the house while their sons were with Shelton. What followed was not described as a disagreement over gameplay, a lost match or anything that happened on a screen. The argument concerned the physical console and who was entitled to keep it. The complaint says Virgil and Shelton each had a connection to the PlayStation, setting up competing claims that witnesses later explained to investigators.
A separate witness told detectives that Virgil and his partner had originally purchased the system. The console later stopped working properly, and Shelton paid to have it fixed, according to that account. The repaired PlayStation then became the subject of the ownership dispute. Investigators have not publicly released a purchase receipt, repair invoice or other record resolving who legally owned the device. For purposes of the criminal case described in the complaint, the importance of the dispute is that witnesses identified it as the argument immediately preceding the shooting.
Virgil’s partner said she tried to bring the argument to an end with money. She told police she offered Shelton $260 for the PlayStation. According to her statement, he refused. The complaint then describes the posture between the two men changing: Virgil and Shelton moved chest-to-chest in an aggressive manner. That was the last stage of the argument the woman said she observed directly before turning away for a moment.
While her attention was elsewhere, she heard several gunshots from the men’s direction, according to the complaint. She turned back and said she saw Shelton holding a firearm. Her description matters because it places Shelton with a weapon immediately after the shots, but the available excerpts also make clear that she had momentarily looked away before the gunfire. Prosecutors’ account therefore rests on her observations before and after the shots along with the other evidence investigators collected. Those allegations have not yet been tested before a jury.
The partner told detectives that Shelton then pointed the firearm toward her and threatened to shoot her. Reports based on the complaint say he left the residence afterward. The woman was not reported as being struck by gunfire. Police later identified Shelton publicly as the person they were seeking. The available news reports do not include an account from Shelton responding to the allegations or explaining what he contends occurred inside the home.
By then, the first responding officer was confronting a scene that extended from the porch to the second floor. The complaint says the officer entered after finding the children outside and located Virgil on the ground in a bedroom. Emergency personnel attempted lifesaving measures. Virgil died at the scene. The shooting was reported at about 6:30 p.m. in the 1200 block of West Keefe Avenue, near North 12th Street.
Investigators later documented evidence left behind in the house. Reports citing the charging document say detectives found spent 9 mm cartridge casings, including two near Virgil’s body and another on a stairway. An autopsy found that Virgil had been shot four times. The physical findings gave detectives evidence beyond the witnesses’ descriptions that multiple rounds had been fired inside the residence. Publicly available reporting does not disclose a complete forensic analysis or establish whether police had recovered the gun described by the witness.
Police initially released only limited information. In the days after Virgil’s death, they confirmed that a 37-year-old man had been killed and said investigators believed they knew the suspect they were seeking. The fuller account emerged after prosecutors filed the criminal complaint Sept. 17. Local reports then identified Shelton as the accused man and described the PlayStation disagreement, the repair payment, the $260 offer and the partner’s allegation that Shelton threatened her after Virgil was shot.
The charge against Shelton is first-degree reckless homicide, according to multiple local reports. That wording is significant because it is the charge prosecutors chose; it should not be restated as a murder conviction or treated as proof of what a jury would find. A criminal complaint sets out allegations intended to support prosecution. Shelton is presumed not guilty unless the state proves the case through the judicial process or he enters a guilty plea. The reliable reports reviewed for this story do not establish that either event has occurred.
For the children at the house, the complaint records a sudden change in circumstances without attempting to describe their emotional experience beyond what the responding officer saw. They had been playing video games before the adults’ ownership dispute, according to the partner. Afterward, an officer found children screaming outside while emergency crews worked inside. News reports do not say that police have publicly released statements from the children, and their accounts should not be inferred from the adult witnesses’ descriptions.
Virgil’s family later provided another perspective on the people affected by the killing. Relatives told TMJ4 that he was a father of three who spent significant time with children in the family. Niece Jameke Hayes recalled him taking boys to basketball camp and taking girls for ice cream and visits to the park. Cousin Takasha Robinson said Virgil wanted to be the best father he could be. The family also said he had recently started a new job and had been making changes in his life.
His sister, Shilonda Leavy, said, “He was my everything. He was our everything,” in an interview shortly after the shooting. At that time, the public did not yet have the detailed allegations about the PlayStation. Family members were speaking primarily about Virgil’s life and the loss confronting his children. Robinson questioned how the family could explain the death to young children and said she wanted the person responsible held accountable.
The later complaint provided an alleged explanation for the shooting but did not answer every question. Public reporting does not establish whether investigators recovered the firearm, whether there were additional witnesses who saw the exact moment the shots were fired or whether Shelton has offered investigators a competing account. Nor does the material reviewed here establish a later court resolution. Those gaps remain important because witness statements and charging allegations are evidence to be evaluated, not substitutes for a completed prosecution.
Several questions therefore remain outside the public record, including whether police have recovered the firearm described by the witness and whether Shelton has given investigators his own account of the confrontation. Authorities were still seeking him when the latest reliable reporting on the case was published. Unless and until the prosecution reaches court, the witness statements and physical evidence described in the complaint remain the state’s untested account of how the argument ended.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.