Jefferson County authorities have arrested a 21-year-old suspect in the fatal shooting of a man .
Erik Jamal Newton is being held at the county jail without bail on suspicion of first-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a weapon. His arrest was announced Wednesday.
The body of Zachary Greenstreet, 27, was found Friday on the 5200 block of Union Court by sheriff’s deputies responding to reports of shots being fired. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to an arrest affidavit, Newton admitted to shooting Greenstreet in an ambush. He told investigators he had been hearing voices that spoke to him and that he shot Greenstreet to make the voice in his head that sounded like Greenstreet go away.
“Despite shooting Zachary, the voice did not go away,” Newton said, according to the affidavit.
After the shooting he allegedly fled and buried the .38-caliber pistol he used against Greenstreet.
Greenstreet was found face-down in the driveway with blood flowing away from his body, the affidavit said. A deputy noted that it appeared he had been shot at least twice — once in the center of the back and another time on the top of his head at close range.
An autopsy later showed he had been shot seven times.
Newton was initially arrested near the shooting scene several hours after Greenstreet’s body was found after he fled from deputies in the area, according to authorities. He was booked into the Jefferson County jail on unrelated charges of criminal trespass and obstruction of a peace officer but later posted bond and was released.
After that arrest, Newton allegedly told authorities he had been at a party in the area, the affidavit says, but couldn’t provide an address for the gathering.
Investigators conducted a search warrant Tuesday at Newton’s home on the 5800 block of Ceylon Street in Denver. Evidence found there led to Newton’s arrest, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, at which point he allegedly confessed.
“Newton was an acquaintance of Greenstreet and had previously been a friend of Greenstreetap girlfriend’s sons,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
Further details on a possible motive were not immediately released. However, the affidavit said more than two years before the shooting, Newton had posted on Facebook that he was in love with Greenstreet’s longtime girlfriend.
