19-year-old woman killed in Spokane drive-by shooting was gang-related, police say

Shootings, assaults and threats between street gangs led up to the fatal drive-by shooting of 19-year-old Maria “Mary” Kapustin last summer at a Spokane overlook known as the “West View,” according to police in court documents.

Law enforcement officers in Greeley, Colorado, arrested 19-year-old Couger L. Devereaux Jr. last week on a murder warrant issued by the Spokane Police Department, police said in a news release.

Kapustin and her friends were gathered at about 1:35 a.m. July 7 at the “West View,” located at 1300 West Courtland Ave., according to documents. The road goes up the hill above Emerson Park in north Spokane.

She was sitting on the hood of her friend’s car when Devereaux’s vehicle, a 2012 Ford Fusion, went past the group. The occupants of the car fired at least seven shots at Kapustin and her friends, with one bullet striking Kapustin in her back and other bullets slamming into the car, police wrote in documents.

Police discovered an “extensive history of violence” between criminal street gangs, including the East Side Familia Nortenos who are feuding with the Murder 1 Crips/Swaviii Crips, in the months leading up to and after the July drive-by shooting, Spokane Police Detective Benjamin Green wrote in court documents. The violence included multiple fights, assaults, shootings and threats.

“This has created a level of animosity that contributes to the events of the homicide on 7/7/2024 and additional cases dating to the present day,” Green wrote.

Kapustin witnessed some of the violence between the gangs and dated someone from the Nortenos and then someone from Murder 1 Crips, according to documents.

Sometime before the July shooting, Kapustin took cellphone video showing Devereaux and another person trading threats and insults with Kapustin and her boyfriend with Murder 1 Crips. Devereaux and the other person kicked Kapustin’s car, documents say.

Several people reported that during this altercation or another one, Devereaux, Kapustin’s ex-boyfriend and their friends broke Kapustin’s headlights, smashed in her windshield and slashed her tires. Her car was found several days after the shooting with damage consistent with what people described, according to documents.

On the morning of the shooting, several witnesses described a dark four-door sedan, which was consistent with Devereaux’s vehicle, passing by a few times while Kapustin and her friends were there, court records show. Devereaux’s vehicle drove by Kapustin and well over a dozen people, including Crips, when shots were fired at the group.

It’s unknown who the intended target was, Green wrote.

Those in Kapustin’s group returned fire at Devereaux’s car, which drove away from the scene, according to video surveillance. Kapustin died at the scene.

Police received dozens of tips from people saying Devereaux and Kapustin’s ex-boyfriend were the shooters, according to documents.

Later that morning of the shooting, Devereaux texted his boss, who loaned him the car, asking him if he could see him and talk about something that happened. Devereaux never showed up and asked if he could extend his vacation before blocking his boss on his social media accounts, documents say.

Devereaux’s car was abandoned on the South Hill after the shooting. Police seized the vehicle, which had bullet holes on it, as evidence.

Officers found seven shell casings inside the car indicating bullets were fired from inside the car. A spare tire was put on the car and the flat tire was in the trunk with a fired bullet inside it, Green wrote. They also found a vacuum in the car with spent shell casings and window glass in the vacuum.

Documents indicated Devereaux’s phone number was linked to the car’s infotainment system and that cellphone location data traced his phone to the time and vicinity of the shooting.

According to documents, three Spokane shootings were reported between the two gangs in a one-week span leading up to the fatal July shooting.

The first was June 9 between the groups in the NorthTown Mall parking lot, Green wrote. Police believe Murder 1 Crips were targeting Nortenos in that shooting, and that Kapustin’s death might have been in retaliation for the shooting.

No one was shot and no one was arrested, according to previous Spokesman-Review reporting. A couple of cars not involved in the shooting were struck by gunfire. Witnesses told police the shooters fled.

On June 14, police responded to a shooting between the Nortenos and the Swaviii Crips in the parking lot of Catholic Charities Eastern Washington’s Mother Teresa Haven complex, 1920 N. Holy Names Court, according to court records.

No one was arrested or injured at the time, the S-R reported. Those involved ran away, police said. The shooting sent the apartment complex and nearby Spokane Falls Community College into a lockdown.

On June 16, police believe Nortenos members targeted Murder 1 Crips at an apartment complex at 2627 N. Market St., documents say.

Police said at the time two groups of young people shot at each other at a large early-morning party, according to the S-R. Two people were shot and injured and no one was arrested related to the shooting.

A witness told police she saw people shooting up at a third-floor apartment unit and people shooting from the balcony down toward the parking lot, according to search warrant documents.

Devereaux was charged with suspicion of second-degree murder and drive-by shooting in Kapustin’s death.