Tulsa Shooting Suspects Said to Confess

Jake England and Alvin Watts are being held on $9.1 million bonds each.

ByABC News
April 9, 2012, 10:57 AM

April 9, 2012 — -- Two Oklahoma men accused of a deadly shooting spree last week that apparently targeted black people at random along Tulsa, Okla.'s streets have confessed to the shootings, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Jake England, 19, confessed to shooting three people, the AP reported. Alvin Watts, 32, confessed to shooting two.

The rampage left three people dead, and two more were seriously wounded. Watts is believed to have shot two of the three who died, according to the documents.

All of the victims are black. England and Watts, who police describe as white, have not been charged with hate crimes.

The confession emerges as Tulsa police continue to piece together the puzzle that led to the shootings that terrorized Tulsa's African-American community beginning Friday, until the men were arrested early Sunday morning.

Police recovered a weapon they believe was used in last Friday's shootings, sources told ABC News, but have not yet disclosed where it was found or any forensic evidence.

The two suspects appeared in an Oklahoma court today via a closed circuit video from the Tulsa County Jail for a bond setting hearing.

Both men were booked under three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of shooting with the intent to kill and one count of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. A judge ordered that they be held, with bonds set at $9.16 million each.

Authorities are probing whether both England and Watts shot the gun that killed two black men and a black woman, and critically wounded two black men, according to police in Tulsa.

Police say their investigation will include England's racially charged Facebook postings, although they say it's premature to describe the incident as a hate crime.

The shootings occurred nearly two years to the day after a black man shot England's father, Carl England, to death on April 5, 2010, according to a post from his Facebook. Authorities believe Watts was a friend of England's father.

On Thursday at 4:04 p.m., England wrote, "Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f------ n----- it's hard not to go off between that and sheran I'm gone in the head."

According to England's Facebook page, his girlfriend, Sheran Hart Wilde, recently died.

The five victims were shot early Friday morning in four separate incidents during a span of less than two hours on the same side of town and not far from one another, police said.

Police identified the deceased victims as Bobby Clark, 54, and William Allen, 31, and Dannaer Fields, 49, the only woman among the victims. There was no connection between the suspects and victims, police said at a news conference on Sunday.

Two males were critically wounded in the shooting spree. All of the victims were targeted while they were out walking, and apparently did not know each other.

"We have not been able to find any commonality between the victims other than they were walking on the street," Sgt. Dave Walker of the Tulsa Police Department said.

On Friday night, England posted on Facebook, "Chilling at that house people talking s--- on me for some s--- I didn't do ... it just mite be the time to call it quits I I hate to say it like that but I'm done if something does happen tonite be ready for another funeral later."

A series of critical tips led to the arrests of both men at a house north of Tulsa around 2 a.m. on Sunday.