Kriti Mehrotra
On November 21, 1992, Timothy “Tim” Peart was fatally wounded during a housewarming party at his best friend’s apartment, leaving the entire community shaken to the core. After all, as explored in Investigation Discovery’s ‘Homicide Hunter Lt. Joe Kenda: Timothy Peart’s Last Dance,’ the Colorado Springs, Colorado, native was merely 16 years old at the time. The bright youngster thus had his whole life ahead of him, but it was snatched away in the blink of an eye due to a tragic, reckless act that, honestly, no one could have ever seen coming.
Timothy Peart Was Fatally Shot During a Crowded Party
Born on February 1, 1976, Timothy “Tim” Peart was reportedly a typical teenage boy trying to live his best life by the time he was a 16-year-old sophomore at Sierra High School in 1992. According to the show, he was a charmer who enjoyed spending most of his free time with friends at a local mall, where he met and befriended a few girls. However, according to his loved ones, he was also book smart as well as street smart, genuinely caring, and never one to get involved with anything criminal or street-related, despite his connections. Tim’s elder brother, Tyrone Larry, indicated in the show that since the family primarily comprised them and their mother, they were both determined to always make her proud.
He even shared that his younger sibling was the glue that held everyone together, especially as he embodied compassion and empathy — the teenager was a kind soul with even kinder eyes. Therefore, when a bang suddenly rang out, and he hit the floor face down while attending his best friend’s crowded housewarming party on the evening of November 21, 1992, it was baffling. First responders rushed him to a hospital almost immediately upon arriving at the scene, but to no avail — he died from the close-range single gunshot wound to the chest shortly thereafter.
Investigations Into Timothy Peart’s Murder Were Initially Led Astray
As soon as investigators arrived at the scene, they realized they had their work cut out for them, owing to not only the number of witnesses but also all the color blue swirling around. The early 1990s marked the emergence of street gangs from the West in El Paso County, with blue being the color associated with The Crips and red with their rivals, The Bloods. Therefore, investigators initially theorized, based on clothing colors, the solo cup, the decor, and witness statements, that the party may have been gang-affiliated. It thus came as no surprise to them when the roommate of Tim’s best friend, who had been DJ-ing the entire event, claimed he saw two men in red jackets fleeing just after the shot rang out.
Every witness indicated something similar in terms of the Bloods possibly being involved, yet they also asserted that they hadn’t seen the shooting, which left officials with more questions. They subsequently spoke to neighbors too, and although they got no reports of anyone seeing two young males rush away from the scene in red jackets, they still set a paramatar to canvas the area. They even took in the DJ/roommate to be questioned further at the station before deciding to check up on Tim in the hopes of learning the truth straight from him, only to hear he had passed away.
That’s when detectives spoke to Tim’s family for the first time, just for his mother to give them the breakthrough they needed by revealing his son’s shooter had already confessed to her in person. According to her account, she had arrived home from work that evening to find patrol cars in her driveway, but Arthur Jones wound up at her vehicle’s window before she could pull up to them. She said Arthur was her son’s best friend and the host of the fateful housewarming party, and he had tears in his eyes as he allegedly told her, “I shot my bro,” and appeared deeply distraught, expressing thoughts of self-harm.
After Serving Time in Prison, Arthur Jones Leads a Quiet Life
Locating Arthur hence became the top priority for officials involved in the matter, driving the leads to approach his roommate at the station under the hypothesis that he had covered up for his friend. They told the roommate they knew everything until he broke, following which they had him do a drive-along to all locations where the young man could be, because they did not want another life lost. They did not find him, yet as inquiries continued, a young woman came in to declare she hadn’t been completely honest while being questioned at the scene because she was afraid of the situation.
The witness admitted she had seen the shooting since she was standing right there, having come to the lively party with a close friend after they had met Tim and Arthur at the mall earlier that day. She stated that while her friend stepped away to grab herself a drink, she watched her date of sorts for the evening turn to Tim and immediately begin conversing in a very “playful,” boy-ish manner. As per her account, the two were having a genuine laugh while playfully shoving each other, even after Arthur pulled out a loaded handgun to show it off and aimed it right at his best friend’s chest. The young woman maintained that the gun went off by accident, but it spooked Arthur so much that he ended up fleeing the scene after a few moments.
A short while later, though, he turned himself in, with it coming to light that an aunt and uncle had spoken to him for three hours to convince him not only not to take his own life, but also to then face justice. In the end, on August 28, 1993, he pleaded guilty to one count of criminally negligent homicide, for which he was sentenced to two years in state prison. From what we can tell, he was released upon serving his sentence around the mid-1990s and has since preferred to remain out of the public eye. According to the show, Arthur wasn’t lying when he said he shot his “bro” because they were like brothers, which is why his loved ones understood it was an accident and chose to forgive him.
