Women go from victims to defendants after being charged with killing car burglar

A Miami couple was at a children’s party with their kids when suddenly they noticed a man rummaging through their car belongings.

Records show Antwoinse Lachaveia Clark, 36, and Fredericka Sherice Pickett-Wilson, 29, confronted the burglar, who has not been identified by police.

The man allegedly punched Pickett-Wilson in the face and started to flee with a blue bookbag that Clark said had contained her cash rent payment, the reports said.

“The night before Easter, she was taking her kids out for a joyous time. A bonding time with her kids,” Sherice Latimore, Pickett-Wilson’s mother, said in an exclusive interview with NBC6.

The two women pursued the man, and Pickett-Wilson pepper-sprayed him before the man ended up shot three times, allegedly by Clark, the reports said.

The exact details about how the man ended up shot weren't clear, as sections of the reports are redacted, though they note that Clark and Pickett-Wilson claimed they didn't know there was a firearm in the blue bookbag.

However, family members told NBC6 the couple was trying to protect their lives and their children.

“Have somebody break into your car. Steal your possessions and feel like they can walk away,” said Cam White, Clark’s sister. “I’m not saying him dying is right at any given moment, but what do you suggest they did?”

Latimore said she was stunned when police arrested the couple. She said police initially considered them the victims. She claimed police found dozens of the burglar's fingerprints around the car. An officer even listed off a few charges the man would face if he recuperated.

However, last week, a month after the shooting, the man died from his injuries.

City of Miami Police told NBC6 there was a gun inside the bag and the shooter denied knowing it was there.

“The victims, which were the two arrested in this case, would’ve just held him down and waited for police to respond. We would have arrested him and they would have been the victims in this case, and that’s how this case would’ve gone. But when they followed him, they chased him down. He was no longer a threat to them,” said Michael Vega, a City of Miami Police spokesperson. “They followed him and shot him. That became a crime.”

The co-defendants are being held without a bond.

“They are not bad people. They are not malicious people. They don’t go around hurting or harming anyone. What would you do for your family?” White said.