LANCASTER – The Lancaster Police Department was dispatched to a shooting in progress this past weekend that turned out to have ties in Dallas and DeSoto.
On December 3 at around 6:26 a.m. police were called to the Quik Trip in Lancaster located in the 3300 block of W. Pleasant Run Rd.
Upon arrival, officers located one victim with gunshot wounds. The victim, 46-year-old Ronnie Wilson was transported to Methodist Central Hospital and later pronounced dead.
Witnesses told police the victim exchanged words with the suspect before he was shot in the back. As the victim turned to walk away the suspect identified as 22-year-old Diavian Roberts, a homeless man originally from Florida shot and killed Wilson.
An arrest warrant for Murder was issued and soon thereafter at around 8:30 p.m. that same day Roberts was taken into custody by DeSoto Police Officers with the help of the Dallas Police Department and US Marshals.
Roberts was in the Dallas area working on one of the many construction projects currently in progress in the vicinity.
The DeSoto Police were involved because Roberts was squatting in a vacant apartment in that city located behind the DeSoto Bank of America.
DeSoto Police located Roberts at that location and Dallas PD arrested him due to previous criminal activities including robbery and murder, in which Roberts was the suspect, according to a source.
Roberts had originally been arrested and put in jail on the robbery charges by Dallas PD.
The court then found Roberts incompetent to stand trial for the offense at which time it was attempted that he get help for his mental health issues.
He was later re-evaluated and found competent. In September, he was released from the mental health program, and at that time his charges were dropped for his outstanding crimes in Dallas.
Roberts ended up breaking into an apartment in DeSoto where he stole a gun, which was used in the murder this past weekend of Wilson.
According to a source, Wilson was not Roberts’ first murder this month, earlier last week in Dallas he was suspected of a murder at the Family Dollar Store. At that time, witnesses said he was seen crouching down to shoot his victim.
The shooting in Dallas earlier last week was the reason Dallas PD made the arrest this past Saturday for the murder in Lancaster.
When the murder in Lancaster occurred, Roberts was identified as the same suspect as the person who was responsible for the murder at the Family Dollar Store as well.
No more information is available, this is an ongoing investigation.
