Double Fatal Domestic Shooting Unfolds In Fairmount Heights

FAIRMOUNT HEIGHTS, MD — Detectives are investigating a domestic-related double fatal shooting that happened Tuesday night.

On Sept. 24 around 11 p.m., Prince George's police officers were called to the 500 block of 62nd Avenue in Fairmount Heights for a report of a shooting. They found 32-year-old Tequia Nails with gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police reported.

Nails was nursing one of her 2-month-old twins at her home on 62nd Avenue in Fairmount Heights when she was shot, according to Fox 5 News. Nails has four children. Police learned during the investigation that 26-year-old Quindell Mercer of Washington, D.C., had shot Nails before taking off. They had been in a relationship and he was the father of their twins. Around 10 a.m. Wednesday, Prince George's Police were notified that Mercer had been found dead in Washington, D.C., from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.

Nails had a restraining order against Mercer.

"They got into it, and he asked her to say another word. She said ‘another word,’ and he shot her twice in the head. When I got there, the baby was full of blood," Lillie Nails, Tequia's mother, told Fox 5 News.

"I would never think this would happen to my sister. She was not that kind of person. She gave me all the advice. She's the reason why I wanted to become a mom," London Nails, the victim’s sister, told Fox 5 News.

Nails’ 16-year-old niece was in the home at the time and recounted to Fox 5 News the terrifying moments leading up to the murder.

"She told him to get out of her house multiple times. He came out of the bathroom and shot her three times while she was holding the baby. I tried to pepper spray him, but he pointed a gun at me. It jammed, and I got out of the house. As I closed the door, he ran out and started shooting at me," her niece recalled.