Boyfriend bought gun, rented U-Haul before pregnant Olathe woman was shot: testimony
A Kansas City, Kan., man was ordered Wednesday to stand trial for the killing of a pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child in Olathe.
Devonte Wash, 26, is charged with capital murder. He is accused of fatally shooting 23-year-old Ashley Harlan inside her Olathe townhouse in January.
After three days of testimony in a preliminary hearing that began earlier this week, Johnson County District Judge Charles Droege ruled Wednesday that there was sufficient probable cause for Wash to face trial.
According to court testimony:
Wash called 911 on Jan. 30 and told Olathe police that he had found Harlan on the floor of her townhouse.
Wash was extensively questioned by detectives and was cooperative. He was one of several potential suspects investigated by Olathe police.
But in March, detective Chad Ramey said, police obtained Wash’s financial records and learned he had rented a U-Haul truck on Jan. 29, the day before Harlan was found dead.
Using footage from video surveillance cameras, police saw a truck, consistent in appearance with the one he rented, driving in the area of her house that night.
Then, about 20 minutes after the last activity on Harlan’s phone, the truck was seen driving away from the area.
When questioned after the killing, Wash told police that he did not own a gun.
But prosecutors presented evidence that about a month before the killing Wash bought a 9 mm handgun from a Cabela’s store.
Investigators learned that on New Year’s Eve, Wash had fired the gun into the air outside a friend’s house in Kansas City, Kan.
Two shell casings were recovered from the yard of that house.
A firearms examiner for the Johnson County Crime Lab testified that they were fired from the same weapon that fired a shell casing found at the scene of Harlan’s killing.
Those shell casings, along with bullet fragments taken from Harlan’s body and the crime scene, also matched the type of ammunition Wash bought with the gun, according to testimony.
Wash is scheduled to appear in court again for a Nov. 19 arraignment. Prosecutors are not required to announce if they intend to seek the death penalty until after that hearing.