Police Make Arrest in Fears' Killing; Still Looking for Shooter

East Ridge police have arrested a Chattanooga woman in connection with the August killing of a man outside a Donaldson Road apartment complex.

Donitta Michelle Fields, 29, of a Tunnel Boulevard address, was booked into the Hamilton County Jail over the weekend on one charge of Accessory After the Fact Homicide. She was jailed on a $25,000 bond and is due in East Ridge Municipal Court on January 19.

According to an affidavit of complaint, at 8:21 a.m. ERPD responded to a shooting in the parking lot of an apartment complex at 912 Donaldson Road. There they found Montrell Lebron Fears, 23, dead from gunshot wounds.

Police believe that Fields was acquainted with the gunman and that he used her car to flee the scene as police were arriving.

The suspect in the shooting, police say, left his girlfriend’s apartment with two children just before the incident. Police believe that Fears, the victim, along with another man may have intended to rob the suspect. An altercation ensued near a Toyota Camry and the suspect fired four shots at Fears from a 9 mm pistol, two of which struck Fears.

Fears along with the other man initially ran into the parking lot. Fears fell to the ground before reaching a car. The other man, the affidavit states, ran up a hill, got into a mini van and took off.

The affidavit states that the suspect approached Fears’ body and began removing items from the dead man’s pockets. He was seen talking with Fields. He then got into Fields’ SUV and was leaving the scene as police arrived.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.