Man pleads guilty to murder charge filed in connection to cousin’s death

A Newport man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting one of his family members at the Newport Transit Center earlier this year.

Court records show 39-year-old Sylvester Tremaine Jones entered a guilty plea on Monday to one count of second-degree murder with a dangerous weapon. His sentencing has been set for the morning of July 19.

According to a criminal complaint, a 911 caller reported a man slumped over and unresponsive in an SUV in the transit center parking lot around 11 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 5. Washington County sheriff’s deputies called to the scene found 39-year-old Terrell McIntyre in the vehicle dead with multiple gunshot wounds.

RELATED: Charges: Man shot, killed cousin at Newport Transit Center

The witness who called 911 told deputies he saw a man walking away from the area about 20 minutes earlier. Using surveillance video and speaking with businesses in the area, investigators tracked the man to a home on the 1700 block of First Avenue, a few blocks south of the shooting scene, according to the complaint.

Deputies served a search warrant at the home that night and arrested Jones. Authorities say he admitted to shooting his cousin, McIntyre. Deputies also recovered a gun that matched the .22-caliber rounds found at the crime scene.

Jones told deputies he had arranged for McIntyre to pick him up at the parking lot and take him to Target and that he had shot his cousin “between eight and ten times,” the criminal complaint states.