Three teenagers were charged in the fatal shooting of aspiring actress Nicole duFresne, who challenged a group of muggers on a Manhattan street last Thursday, The Associated Press reports.
The suspects–Rudy Fleming, 19, Ashley Evans, 18 and Tatianna McDonald, 14–were allegedly part of a group that accosted duFresne, 28, her fiance and another couple on Jan. 27 after they left a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Witnesses told the AP that after the suspects demanded money and grabbed for the other woman’s purse, duFresne intervened, asking: “What are you going to do, shoot us?” After a brief shoving match between duFresne and Fleming, he allegedly fired a single shot into her chest, police said.
McDonald, who surrendered on Monday, confessed to police that she was with the gunman and that she had taken a cell phone from the stolen purse, according to court papers.
Fleming and four others were picked up for questioning late Sunday. Two of the four were charged in an attempted robbery the same night but not in duFresne’s slaying, and the remaining two were considered witnesses, AP reports. An arraignment on murder and other charges was scheduled for later Wednesday.
DuFresne’s Web site described her as a writer, actor and producer. A Minnesota native, she was a graduate of Emerson College in Boston, and was active in several avant-garde theater projects in Manhattan and elsewhere.
