Renee Metcalf owned a home in Twentynine Palms where she lived with her adult daughter, Christy McKissic, and Christy’s daughter, Zariah. On the night of the murders, Zariah fell asleep in bed with her grandmother. At approximately midnight, Zariah was woken up to her grandmother running out of her room toward Christy’s room. Zariah then heard gunshots and saw blood spray in the hallway. Zariah saw a man walk in the room towards her while pointing a gun at her. The magazine of the gun dropped out of the gun and the male told her to, “shut up and go to sleep.” The male left the home moments later. Zariah walked out of the room and found her mother and grandmother dead from multiple gunshot wounds including close range shots to the head of both victims. Zariah called 911.
Homicide detectives found that Christy’s phone was missing but obtained records from Sprint and Google. The Sprint records showed the last call received from Christy’s phone belonged to a marine by the name of Rafael Aikens. The Google records showed that Christy’s phone moved away from her home at the same time Zariah was calling 911 and the phone ended up at the marine base right near the barracks building Aikens lived in. Aikens was arrested but denied involvement.
Fellow marines were interviewed including one who said the day after the murders, Aikens gave him his pistol and asked him if he could take it home off the base and clean it. Additionally, another marine told detectives a couple weeks later that Aikens had said he had killed two people but that at the time he didn’t believe he was being serious. The defendant’s gun was compared to an FCC and bullet located at the scene and came back as a match.
At trial, the defendant took the stand and testified that he called the victim that night to catch up but that the two of them never talked. When confronted with evidence that his phone had been erased when detectives took possession of it, he stated that he downloaded pornography on the phone which caused a phone wiping virus. The jury did not believe his testimony.
After less than an hour of deliberations, the jury convicted the defendant of both counts of first-degree murder plus multiple allegations.