The victim of a brutal axe killing in Ventura County earlier this week has been identified as the suspect’s younger brother, his family confirmed late Friday.
Zayde Keohouho, 15, was killed by his older brother, 24-year-old Zuberi Sharp, in the 400 block of Jeanne Court in an unincorporated area near Newbury Park on Thursday, according to authorities and the victim’s family.
“I will confirm that the deceased is our grandson, Zayde, who was 15 years old,” his grandfather, Gary Keohouho, said in a brief statement Friday night. “We appreciate the outpouring of love, aloha, support and prayers from friends and ohanas in this wonderful community.”
Sharp was arrested Thursday night after he was found running naked through Newbury Park High School’s football field, prompting a lockdown because some students were still on the grounds, authorities said. Sheriff’s deputies who were chasing Sharp said he was armed with an axe, according to recordings of radio communications from the incident. The deputies also suggested the axe might be tied to the death on Jeanne Court, according to the audio clips.
Jail records show Sharp was arrested around 8 p.m. on Thursday and booked on suspicion of murder. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday morning, though prosecutors have yet to formally file murder charges in the case. Officials referred all questions to the sheriff’s department.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 call on Jeanne Court on Thursday and found a “male juvenile” who had suffered “severe trauma,” according to a sheriff’s department news release. The victim was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Sharp was almost immediately identified as the suspect and taken into custody, officials said.
Neither authorities nor Zayde’s family provided a motive in the killing. On a GoFundMe page seeking donations for the boy’s funeral expenses, Zayde’s aunt said her nephew’s “beautiful soul was the center of our family.”
“He loved music, was a drummer and gave the warmest all encompassing hugs,” she wrote.
Authorities have not confirmed Zayde was the victim in the case, and a spokesman for the sheriff’s department did not respond to a call for comment Saturday morning.
The brutal killing is eerily similar to a murder Sharp’s father confessed to. Calvin Sharp used a meat cleaver to kill a 6-year-old boy, Sev’n Molina, in August 2007 and later told investigators he received messages from XM Satellite Radio ordering him to attack the child and stab the boy’s mother, the Ventura County Star reported at the time.
Calvin Sharp went to Sandra Ruiz’s apartment with the intention of forcing her to have sex with him, prosecutors said in an indictment. The two had dated but broken up about six months before the attack. Zuberi Sharp attended the same preschool as the boy his father killed.
Calvin Sharp pleaded guilty in 2009, but a years-long court battle followed over whether he was competent to stand trial. Ultimately, a judge deemed him sane and Calvin Sharp was sentenced to life without parole.
Local authorities had a run-in with Zuberi Sharp just hours before they discovered his younger brother had been killed, when they found him trapped in a storm drain, according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Monica Smith. He was rescued around 1 p.m. on Thursday near the intersection of Borchard and Reino roads, about a half mile from the scene of the killing.
Andrew Dowd, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said Sharp was trapped in the storm drain about three feet below grade. He was taken to a hospital for an evaluation, but Dowd could not provide additional details.
Smith could not say exactly when the killing occurred, nor would she confirm an axe was the weapon used to commit the attack.
