A St. Louis County man on Thursday admitted to shooting four teenagers in St. Louis in 2023, killing two and causing the death of one woman’s unborn child.
Eddie Marcus Love, 38, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to four felony counts: conspiracy to distribute marijuana, discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, being a felon in possession of ammunition and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Mr Love is scheduled to be sentenced on June 11. The U.S. Attorney’s Office will recommend 50 years in prison.
Mr Love admitted to shooting the four women after failing to buy marijuana for them.
On the evening of May 6, 2023, one of the victims contacted Mr Love and arranged for herself and her friends to be picked up so they could obtain marijuana and visit a bar.
Mr Love’s co-defendant, Charles Webster, was driving, and Mr Love was in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen Passat, according to a statement by the attorney’s office (Eastern District of Missouri) on Thursday.
The victims shared the back seat.
Messrs Webster and Love tried and failed to buy marijuana twice. When the victims expressed their frustration, Mr Love told them to get out of the car near the 1900 block of Agnes Street in St. Louis.
Mr Love shoved one victim, who told him to stop because she was pregnant.
Mr Love was armed with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and began shooting at the women as they walked away, killing the two 18-year-olds and wounding the two 17-year-olds, he admitted Thursday.
Mr Love told Mr Webster to circle the block, and he then shot one of the wounded victims twice more in the head. She was 10 weeks pregnant, but her child was not injured.
The child of the other wounded victim, who was 30 weeks pregnant, was delivered by emergency C-section and died about a month later as a result of gunshot wounds.
On May 12, 2023, investigators conducted a court-approved search of Mr Love’s home in Bellefontaine Neighbors and found the Passat, a cell phone that contained Mr Love’s messages with one of the victims, clothing worn by Messrs Webster and Love at the time of the shooting, one spent nine-millimeter cartridge casing that matched the casings from the crime scene, three guns and various magazines and ammunition.
Mr Love is a convicted felon and is thus barred from possessing firearms or ammunition. Investigators also found a pair of shoes with multiple apparent blood stains containing DNA matching one of the victims.
Mr Webster pleaded guilty in December to three counts: conspiracy to knowingly and intentionally possess with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, conspiracy to possess a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May.