Prosecutors in Washington, D.C., told a judge Friday that DNA testing on shell casings recovered from the scene of a fatal shooting last summer produced an "overwhelming statistical match" to one of the teenagers charged with murdering Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, a 21-year-old congressional intern and University of Massachusetts Amherst student gunned down near the heart of the nation's capital.
Government attorneys also told D.C. Superior Court Judge Danya Dayson that DNA evidence ties a second defendant, Kelvin Thomas Jr., to the shooting, Fox News Digital reported. Two rounds of DNA testing have been completed, and prosecutors said additional expert testimony on DNA analysis, ballistics, and fingerprint evidence is expected at trial.
The case has drawn national attention since Tarpinian-Jachym, a rising senior from Granby, Massachusetts, spending the summer interning for Kansas Republican Rep. Ron Estes, was shot four times near the intersection of 7th and M Street NW on June 30, 2025. He died the following day. Three suspects, all teenagers at the time, now face charges as adults.
What prosecutors revealed at the Friday hearing
At the status hearing before Judge Dayson, government attorneys laid out the state of the physical evidence tying the defendants to the killing. Testing on shell casings recovered at the scene produced what prosecutors described as an "overwhelming statistical match" to Jailen Lucas, who was 17 at the time of the shooting. DNA also links Thomas, also 17 at the time, to the crime.
Both Lucas and Thomas were arrested on September 5 and charged as adults with first-degree murder while armed. A third suspect, 18-year-old Naqwan Antonio Lucas of the District of Columbia, was arrested on October 31 in Montgomery Village and also charged in Tarpinian-Jachym's killing.
Authorities say three armed suspects exited a stolen vehicle and opened fire at two individuals in the area. Tarpinian-Jachym was struck four times. No motive has been publicly stated.
A pretrial hearing is scheduled for May 15. The trial is expected to begin in February.
A summer intern in a dangerous city
Tarpinian-Jachym came to Washington to do the kind of thing ambitious young Americans have done for generations, work on Capitol Hill, learn the process, build a career. He was interning for Rep. Estes, a Kansas Republican. He never made it home to Massachusetts.
The Metropolitan Police Department released additional photographs of Naqwan Lucas and previously pictured Kelvin Thomas Jr. and Jailen Lucas. The investigation stretched months before all three suspects were in custody.
His mother, Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym, appeared on "Fox & Friends First" to discuss her push for justice and her support for stricter crime laws for juveniles. She declined to comment further when contacted by Fox News Digital.
The case sits at the intersection of two realities that Washington's political class prefers to keep separate: the gleaming world of congressional internships and committee hearings, and the street-level violence that residents and visitors face in the District. It is not the only recent case to force that collision into public view. A brazen ambush of a U.S. Park Police officer in an unmarked vehicle in D.C. underscored the same point, that serious, armed violence keeps finding targets in the nation's capital.
Juveniles charged as adults, and the policy debate behind it
All three defendants were teenagers when Tarpinian-Jachym was killed. Two were 17. Prosecutors chose to charge Jailen Lucas and Thomas as adults with first-degree murder while armed, a decision that carries vastly different sentencing consequences than a juvenile adjudication would.
That decision matters beyond this single courtroom. Across the country, and especially in the District, advocates have pushed to soften sentencing for young offenders, arguing that juvenile brains are not fully developed and that long sentences do more harm than good. Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym's public advocacy for stricter juvenile crime laws puts her squarely on the other side of that debate.
Washington has its own fraught history with these questions. A D.C. cop killer who shot an officer four times later sought early release under the District's lenient sentencing provisions, a case that crystallized the real-world consequences of policies that prioritize rehabilitation over incapacitation for violent offenders.
The facts prosecutors presented Friday suggest they believe the physical evidence is strong. Shell-casing DNA matching one defendant. DNA tying a second. Additional ballistics and fingerprint testimony still to come. Whether that evidence holds up at trial is a question for the jury expected to hear the case in February.
A city that keeps making headlines for the wrong reasons
The killing of a congressional intern in the District is not just a crime story. It is a measure of what the capital has become for the people who live and work there. Interns, staffers, tourists, and federal employees navigate a city where violent crime, including armed robbery, carjacking, and homicide, has remained a persistent concern.
Security concerns in Washington have intensified on multiple fronts. Federal agencies have ramped up protection around government buildings and officials in response to various threats, yet the everyday danger on D.C. streets often receives less institutional attention.
Three armed teenagers allegedly stepping out of a stolen car and opening fire on strangers near a busy Northwest Washington intersection is not an anomaly that can be waved away as random misfortune. It is the kind of violence that follows predictably when juveniles have easy access to firearms, stolen vehicles, and the confidence that consequences will be light.
The broader pattern of violent incidents near the halls of power, including a recent violent clash with Capitol Police during a Senate hearing, reminds the public that Washington's security challenges extend well beyond terrorism briefings and diplomatic threats.
What comes next
The May 15 pretrial hearing will likely address the admissibility and scope of the DNA evidence prosecutors disclosed Friday. Defense attorneys have not yet publicly responded to the government's claims about the shell-casing match. The trial, expected in February, will test whether the "overwhelming statistical match" prosecutors described holds up under cross-examination and expert scrutiny.
For now, three young men sit charged as adults in the murder of a college student who came to Washington to serve his country through a congressional internship. Two of them are allegedly tied to the crime by their own DNA, left on the brass that killed him.
Eric Tarpinian-Jachym did everything right. He studied hard, earned an internship, and showed up to work. The system that was supposed to keep him safe on a summer evening in the nation's capital owes his family, and every other family, a serious answer about why it didn't.
