AURORA | While Kamyl Xavier Garrette faces a murder charge stemming from a Friday shooting inside the Aurora Town Center, records show his brother is in prison on a separate murder conviction, and that his brother’s arrest profoundly affected him.
On Facebook and other social media sites created by Garrette and others, the 2018 conviction of Kylvito Garrette caused Kamyl a great deal of angst. He posted frequently about being distressed by what he saw as unfair charges and people who knew his brother who turned against him.
Documents from the state Department of Corrections show Kylvito Garrette will be held in a Canon City prison until eligible in parole in 2051.
TV news Denver7 reported in February 2018 that Denver district attorneys charged Kylvito with multiple murder charges after a deadly February 2018 shooting in Montbello. The shooting left one person dead. Reports show the charges stemmed from a drug deal gone bad.
Kylvito was later convicted and sentenced to 44 years in prison.
Aurora police say Kamyl Garrette, 18, shot and killed 17-year-old Nathan Poindexter Friday afternoon in the J.C. Penney store at the Town Center at Aurora.
Police have not released a possible motive in the shooting. Garrette made his first appearance in an Arapahoe County court Monday and faces first-degree murder charges.
On a Facebook account, Kamyl defended his brother and called him innocent of the 2018 murder.
“F*** the law they took my brother,” Kamyl Garrette posted to his Facebook page Feb. 22, 2018. “Nothin can explain my pain. Free Vito.”
The page is rife with photos of Kamyl flashing gang signs and making gang references. He used the moniker Kam OTF as a Facebook page. OTF is a common reference to “only the family,” which gang experts say has a variety of distinctions among gang sects and members.
Kamyl made several posts being critical of his brother’s friends for apparently revealing information to police. “…we a different breed still standing tall the pain hurts but we still blessed with gods breath every morning.”
The page has since been suspended. After an earlier version of this story was published, district attorney investigators said Facebook would not provide access to the page without identifying information, included in this story.
Sentinel Colorado declined a request from investigators to directly provide the details, which is contrary to the newspaper’s editorial policy prohibiting cooperation with any government investigation.
