Twenty-five minutes before midnight on Sept. 16 of last year, Portsmouth Police found 27-year-old Johnathan Outland slumped against the wall in a house on Avondale Road, more than 30 miles from his Isle of Wight County home, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his head.

When Outland died less than two hours later at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, police attributed his death to suicide based on statements by witnesses who told officers that Outland had been playing Russian roulette with his revolver.

Outland’s mother, Diadra “Dee” Colontuono, never believed that explanation.

“My son did not kill himself, I know he didn’t,” Colontuono told The Smithfield Times five days before the one-year anniversary of her son’s death.

For the past 11 months, she’s been working with husband-and-wife private investigators Carl and Suzanne Sequeira to prove Johnathan was murdered. The Sequeiras each formerly worked for Portsmouth Police, Carl as an officer and Suzanne as a forensics technician.

The couple’s analysis of police reports and the officers’ body camera footage has uncovered inconsistencies with the suicide narrative, prompting police to reopen the case.

 

Suicide or murder?

Police found Outland’s gun – a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver – on the floor, out of reach of his hand. Beneath the gun were dried blood drops, which, according to the Sequeiras, could not have dried in the three minutes that elapsed between the 11:32 p.m. 911 call placed from the residence and officers’ arrival at 11:35 p.m. 

The couple noticed the blood drops after watching body camera footage from an officer who had picked up the gun and moved it to a kitchen counter.

The fact that the blood drops were circular, Suzanne told the Times, indicates they hit the floor at a 90-degree angle.

“Somebody had to be dripping blood or blood was coming off an object,” Suzanne said. “That’s not blood that would come from a body from a distance because if it did, you would see directionality.”

The footage showed the officer’s white gloves remain clean after handling the firearm. According to the Suqueiras, the lack of blood or brain matter on the gun itself is also inconsistent with the narrative that Outland had pressed it against his head and fired it.

“Suzanne and I have worked hundreds of suicides,” Carl said.

Police did, however, find only one person’s DNA on the gun – Outland’s.

The Sequeiras’ theory is that either a gun other than Outland’s killed him, or that Outland’s gun was partially cleaned and deliberately left for police to find. But without the bullet, there’s no way to prove it.

According to Suzanne, the bullet passed “through and through,” meaning Outland had an entrance wound and an exit wound. According to police reports the Sequeiras obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, and shared with the Times, police found a single bullet hole 6 inches to a foot above the front door, but didn’t find the bullet.

After Outland’s death at 1:25 a.m. on Sept. 17, Norfolk General provided his clothing to police for forensic analysis. According to Suzanne, there was no blood on either of the ankle socks Outland was wearing when he died, but there was a third tube sock found on his person covered in blood.

Her theory is that someone other than Outland used the non-matching sock to pick up some piece of evidence prior to police arriving, then stashed the bloodied sock on Outland’s person.

The couple say they’ve documented, over the past 11 months, 14 separate inconsistencies with the suicide ruling. On June 20 of this year, Portsmouth Police Chief Stephen Jenkins wrote in an email to Suzanne that based on the information the couple had provided as of that date, he had instructed his department to reopen the investigation and assign the case to a new detective.

Officially, however, the case remains classified as a suicide.

Elexcia Washington, a Portsmouth Police spokeswoman, told the Times that the reopening of the case is “for the sole purpose of making sure we didn’t miss anything.”

“Guns can bounce” when fired and dropped, Washington said, providing a possible alternative explanation of why police found Outland’s firearm beyond his reach.

A medical examiner, Washington said, also ruled the death a suicide. The medical examiner’s report showed Outland had a blood alcohol content of .09, just above the .08 legal threshold for driving under the influence, and tested positive for cocaine.

 

A drug deal gone bad?

Outland was raised by his grandparents Oliver “Scooter” and Linda Brickhouse, in Carrsville, an unincorporated rural community on the southern tip of Isle of Wight County.

Growing up in Carrsville, he attended Greenbrier Christian Academy and later Isle of Wight County Schools, where through the school division’s then-partnership with the city of Suffolk’s Pruden vocational center, he earned certification as a heavy equipment operator and went into business with his grandfather, who owns and operates B&R Contractors Inc.

Johnathan met his wife, Tiffany Outland, in eighth grade when the two attended the former Windsor Middle School, and married her at age 21. The couple had three children.

“His youngest, her memories will only be what we tell her, she won’t remember her father,” Colontuono said.

Jonathan’s mother described her son as a “country boy” whose favorite pastimes were riding all-terrain vehicles, hunting and riding fast on his motorcycle.

Colontuono said she’d “never worried” that Johnathan would develop a drug habit until he began acting out of character and was seemingly “running from his life” in the months leading up to his death. At that time, he’d separated from his wife and had moved back in with his grandparents.

When Colontuono asked him if he was using drugs, she recalls he initially denied it, but later admitted to her that he was using cocaine.

“He acted like it wasn’t anything bad,” Colontuono recalls.

No one was more shocked than the Brickhouses.

“He was a boy that wouldn’t even take a Tylenol,” Linda said, recalling he’d once “completely refused” when doctors wanted to administer morphine after he’d broken a bone.

The Sequeiras believe Johnathan may have been attempting to purchase drugs at the house on Avondale Road the night of his death.

Johnathan’s cousin Tara Williams was the last person to see him alive.

Williams told the Times that Johnathan had left her home in Chesapeake at 10:55 p.m. and had arrived at the Avondale Road house by 11 p.m., minutes before the shooting.

While police reports claim Johnathan’s judgment was likely impaired by the alcohol and cocaine found in his system, Williams said he “was himself” at her place, and “wasn’t stumbling” or “slurring his words.”

“I’m not going to tell you he wasn’t high, he was,” she said.

He also wasn’t alone.

He’d arrived at Williams’ place in a truck driven by one of the three witnesses who told police Johnathan had died playing Russian roulette.

The Smithfield Times is electing not to disclose the names of the three witnesses, as none to date has been charged in connection with the shooting, which remains officially classified as self-inflicted. A police report states two witnesses “stated they heard the shot but didn’t see if the victim shot himself.”

Williams said she’d learned from Johnathan that he’d left his motorcycle at the Avondale Road house along with some cash and his gun earlier that day.

“Johnathan always had his gun with him, he always carried a gun, it’s just what he did,” Williams said, so “the fact that he had been convinced to leave his gun at that house was surprising.”

Johnathan “knew gun safety,” and wasn’t suicidal, Linda said. In fact, he was “happier in the last year than he had ever been” and the morning before the shooting, had taken a four-hour parenting class at Paul D. Camp Community College in Franklin.

“None of it lines up,” Linda said. “I knew from the get-go Johnathan would not kill himself.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:47 a.m. on Sept. 18 to correct the time Johnathan Outland left Tara Williams’ house.