A teenager has pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in connection with two murders that took place just days apart in 2023.

Dhaevontae Rogers-Broadus, 18, has been behind bars since he turned himself in to Aurora Police in October 2023 after a shooting at Southlands Mall that killed a 15-year-old. In April 2024, prosecutors charged Rogers-Broadus in a carjacking that took the life of a 23-year-old man who had come to the United States from Iraq less than a year before his death.

Although Rogers-Broadus was charged in connection with the deadly carjacking months after he turned himself in for the shopping center shooting, the carjacking happened first, just 11 days prior.

On the night of Sept. 19, 2023, 23-year-old Ahmed Zainuldeen was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Ivy Crossing Apartment Complex in Aurora. According to an arrest affidavit from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, Zainuldeen had walked to the parking lot after hearing his car alarm and was knocking on the front window when one of three teenagers shot him from the back seat. The teens drove away in Zainuldeen’s vehicle, which officers later found abandoned in the 3800 block of South Bahama Street, the affidavit reads.

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