A court document describes in detail a series of crimes last month in which a gunman allegedly killed a man in a North Bethesda apartment and then, with accomplices, kidnapped the man’s girlfriend and his relative.

A charging document for one of three suspects — Sheldon Boykins, 37, of Hyattsville — was obtained by The Banner Montgomery on Tuesday.

Boykins is not charged with the murder of Akwalabeng Fontava, 29, on Sept. 21, but he faces kidnapping and handgun charges, according to the document. He is represented by a public defender, but that attorney could not be reached for comment.

On that Sunday morning, the charging document says, a gunshot awoke a male relative inside the apartment. Also at the apartment was a woman — Fontava’s girlfriend.

The relative “went to sleep on the living room couch,” the court record said. Soon after he heard the shot and “saw Fontava unresponsive on the living room floor.”

The relative then saw a man wearing dark clothes and a mask and armed with a gun, and a second suspect, also armed. The two suspects forced the relative and Fontava’s girlfriend out of the apartment, the document says.

The Mustang

At gunpoint, the relative and Fontava’s girlfriend were told to get into the girlfriend’s Ford Mustang in the apartment building’s parking lot.

The relative was directed to sit in the back with one suspect while the other suspect drove, with Fontava’s girlfriend in the front seat, according to the document. The suspects drove a short distance and picked up a third suspect, who got into the Mustang’s front passenger seat and had Fontava’s girlfriend sit on his lap.

In the Mustang, the three suspects spoke to each other about the shooting, saying they had just “slept” a person — slang for murder. The relative told investigators, according to court records, that the suspect in the backseat “continued to point a gun at his head as they drove.”

Court records said the suspects took the relative’s phone and wallet and then dropped him off in Burtonsville, a location to which he had no connection.

Investigators in contact with the relative then began receiving real-time information about the location of the “pings” from his phone after he logged into his Apple account. They also had information from the girlfriend’s cellphone, court records said.

“Both devices showed in the area of Westfield Montgomery Mall” in Bethesda, court records said.

Police headed to the mall, and there saw Fontava’s girlfriend with Boykins, who matched the description given by the relative. Police observed the two exit the building and get into the Mustang with Boykins in the driver’s seat and the girlfriend in the front passenger seat. Boykins drove away from the mall and police pulled the car over.

They found a loaded 9 mm gun in Boykins’ jacket pocket and a .38 caliber revolver under the front passenger seat, court records said.

Fontava’s girlfriend corroborated the relative’s account of the kidnapping. She also told investigators that Boykins advised the two other suspects on how to clean up the crime scene and asked if they had done so, according to court records.

Charges

Two of the three suspects are in custody — Boykins and Joshua Carter, 18.

Carter, of Silver Spring, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Fontava’s death, police said last week. Carter is also charged with two counts of kidnapping and two counts of armed robbery, police said. U.S. Marshals arrested Carter in Fayetteville, North Carolina, police said.

Carter was in the Cumberland County Detention Center on Tuesday afternoon, according to a staffer at the facility. It was unclear if he had retained a lawyer in North Carolina.

He faces extradition to Maryland, police said.

No information had been released by police as of Tuesday afternoon if a third suspect, 25-year-old Justin Michael Greene Collins, also of Silver Spring, had been arrested.