Middletown man charged with killing his uncle indicted for murder

A Middletown man accused of fatally shooting his uncle last week has been indicted by a Butler County grand jury for murder.

Denzel Fuller, 22, who has been in the Middletown City Jail in lieu of $1 million bond since his arrest, is charged with felonious assault, having weapons under disability and tampering with evidence in addition to the murder charge with a gun specification, which adds three years to a sentence if convicted.

He was scheduled to be back in Middletown Municipal Court on Friday, but because of the direct indictment, the hearing will not happen.

Fuller faces 18 years to life in prison. The case is assigned to Butler County Common Pleas Judge Dan Haughey and he is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.

Fuller allegedly shot and killed his uncle, Terry Fuller, 42, of Middletown, Aug. 1 in the 2100 block of Grand Avenue in Middletown. It was the city’s first homicide of the year, said police Chief David Birk.

Last week, at Fuller’s arraignment, his mother and Terry Fuller’s sister, Tina Fuller, said her son “snapped,” he was scared for his life and he was protecting his family. She said her son was “not in the right state of mind” and the fatal shooting never should have happened.

“I put it all on the devil,” she said after the court appearance.

Middletown police were called at 10:30 p.m. Aug. 1 on a report of several shots fired near Grand Avenue and Wilson Street. Birk said the dispute between the two men started earlier in the night, then “rolled over” until the deadly shooting.

Terry Fuller died at the scene. His body was on the sidewalk curb when officers arrived. While no gun was recovered, police officers found more than 20 casings in the area, Birk said.

Denzel Fuller was tracked down by police and taken into custody in an apartment in the 600 block of Lafayette Avenue.

He previously was arrested in September 2017 for the robbery and assault of a pizza delivery driver on Hill Avenue in Middletown, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to robbery, a third-degree felony, in Butler County Common Pleas Court and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Staff Writer Rick McCrabb contributed to this report.

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