Details emerge in teen’s shooting death

Published 6:00 am Friday, January 31, 2025

A Bowling Green man charged in a deadly weekend shooting saw his case advance to a grand jury for possible indictment.

Tylan Barnett, 22, is charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with the death of Jamarco Dye, 16, who was found shot to death in the early morning hours of Sunday in a grassy area behind an apartment building at 110 Audley Avenue.

Barnett appeared Wednesday in Warren District Court with his attorney, Matt Baker, for a preliminary hearing in which Warren District Judge Kim Geoghegan bound the case over to a grand jury.

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Detective David Grimsley of the Bowling Green Police Department testified that police received multiple calls of shots fired in the area early Sunday, including a call from Barnett’s sister.

Grimsley said police had responded earlier in the evening to the woman’s apartment on a report of an attempted burglary.

Barnett reportedly told police that he was at a movie theater with someone when his sister called him shortly after 12 a.m. Sunday and told him that someone had tried to get into her residence earlier that night.

Barnett came to his sister’s apartment and stayed there and told police he saw two people approach the apartment from the back, leading him to go out onto the back patio, Grimsley said.

The detective said Barnett told police that one of the people ran and was too far away from Barnett to engage, so Barnett fired multiple shots at Dye from a distance of about 20 yards, saw him fall, walked near him and threw the gun he used into a nearby brush line.

Police recovered the gun along with 15 shell casings from the scene.

City police learned that Barnett then walked back into the apartment and took a shower, and officers recovered the clothes he wore, as well as an open bottle of bleach from near the shower, Grimsley said.

Detectives found a cell phone near Dye’s body on which a Facetime audio call was active, and police later questioned a 15-year-old who reportedly said he was on a call with Dye when he heard gunshots over the phone.

“(The 15-year-old) said he then heard a man’s voice make a derogatory statement to Mr. Dye and a final gunshot,” Grimsley said.

Police also located the person who was with Dye at the time of the incident, another 15-year-old boy.

Grimsley said the teenager told police that he and Dye had walked past the apartment on their way to a convenience store on the other side of the building, denying that they were armed or attempting to break into any apartments.

The detective said that doorbell camera footage from Barnett’s sister’s apartment shows Dye and the 15-year-old walking on the sidewalk past the apartment.

Questioned by Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Kori Beck Bumgarner, Grimsley testified that police had not recovered any surveillance video footage that showed Dye and the 15-year-old attempting to break into the apartment and he was not aware of any video of the two carrying firearms.

Answering a question from Bumgarner about the distance between the sidewalk and the apartment building, Grimsley said the building was recessed from the sidewalk rather than flush with it.

Police recovered surveillance footage from another address that appears to show the gunshots, Grimsley said.