A 30-year-old man faces charges of first-degree murder after two Omaha men were found shot dead in separate Council Bluffs roadways last weekend.
Dequanta Zachary of Council Bluffs was taken into custody Monday and faces two counts of first-degree murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He is alleged to have shot and killed Deonte Ivory, 36, and Michael Anderson, 25, both of Omaha, before leaving their bodies miles apart in Council Bluffs.
According to a search warrant affidavit for Zachary’s phone, first responders were dispatched to the 2100 block of South 29th Street shortly early on April 28. A 911 caller reported he was leaving work at a nearby factory when he found an unresponsive male lying in the roadway with blood coming from his head.
The man, later identified as Ivory, was declared dead at the scene. His cause of death is believed to be a gunshot wound to the head, according to the affidavit.
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About seven hours later, first responders were dispatched to the intersection of 24th Street and Marketplace Drive in Council Bluffs to reports of an unresponsive male laying on the ground covered in blood. Anderson was declared dead when officers arrived at 7:08 a.m. He had been shot multiple times, according to the affidavit.
Utilizing license plate readers, investigators identified a dark-colored Dodge Charger with Ohio license plates that was located driving near both scenes from about 11 p.m. on April 27 until 12:30 a.m. on April 28. The Charger was found to be a rental car.
On the evening of April 28, the person renting the car called police to report the vehicle as stolen. She said her boyfriend, Dequanta Zachary, had taken the Dodge Charger on April 26 and did not return it, according to the affidavit.
The Charger was located April 29 in Mills County, Iowa, in an isolated area near Glenwood. The vehicle had bullet holes in the rear driver’s side door, according to the affidavit, and shell casings and apparent bloodstains were plainly visible through the windows.
Also on April 29, law enforcement requested cellphone location data from Zachary, which was provided by T-Mobile and placed him in the area of Blair, Nebraska. According to the affidavit, Zachary called police himself while in Blair and said he wanted to speak with officers. He was taken into custody by the Blair Police Department on an outstanding theft warrant.
In a voluntary interview with police, according to the affidavit, Zachary told officers that he was with Ivory and Anderson before their deaths, but said he dropped them off at a hotel on the evening of April 27 before doing drugs in the car alone until about 9 p.m. Zachary claimed the Dodge Charger was stolen out of the hotel parking lot by someone else overnight and denied any knowledge of Ivory’s and Anderson’s deaths.
Zachary is being held at the Pottawattamie County Jail.