INDIANAPOLIS — Brothers Jaquareous Mitchell and Jimmy Thomas were gunned down inside the Shell gas station at 34th Street and Emerson Avenue over the weekend.
"His brother was his best friend," said Jada Catchings, Mitchell's longtime girlfriend. "He was his brother's keeper. He died going out his brother's keeper."
Catchings and Mitchell have five children together with a sixth on the way.
"I genuinely don't know what to do with myself. I feel bad for his kids, my kids. I just feel bad," Catchings said. "This shouldn't have happened that way. He shouldn't have went out like that."
Catchings tells 13News Mitchell and Thomas were out running a quick errand Saturday afternoon.
"He just was on his way to go get pizza. He went to go get Little Caesars," Catchings said. "I got the text message, he picked it up at 5:14 and then at 5:45 getting a call that he was dead at the gas station."
Mitchell and Thomas were both shot inside the Emerson Food Mart at 3402 N. Emerson Ave., near East 34th Street. Mitchell was pronounced dead at the scene, while Thomas was taken to a hospital but later died from his injuries, according to the Marion County Coroner's Office.
Catchings said she thinks she knows who the shooter is, and believes he's been staying at an abandoned apartment right next to hers and Mitchell's.
"They were into it with the people that were living in the abandoned apartment next door to us. His brother was and him," Catchings said. "As I'm on the crime scene and then they say the suspect, he ran off towards the apartments, it just made sense and the description. That was the guy that lived next door."
Catchings said Thomas and Mitchell were friendly with their neighbor before the relationship turned sour.
"I want to say the murderer was in the abandoned apartment next door because my house was robbed right afterwards," Catchings said. "I had to make a police report, I don't feel comfortable in these apartments anymore."
That report says hundreds of dollars worth of property was taken. Catchings said the thief only stole her belongings from her room.
"It was a direct hit. It was personal," she said. "I feel like it was personal."
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact IMPD Det. Jose Torres at 317-327-3475 or Jose.Torres@indy.gov. Tips can also be made anonymously to Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.