A Richard Montgomery High School alumnus facing first-degree murder charges in connection with the Friday morning shooting deaths of a man and a woman in Rockville planned to abandon the BMW carrying the male victim’s body in the woods before the car stopped working at an intersection, according to charging documents.
Kaloyan Dimov Stoev, 25, will remain held without bond in connection with the deaths of Rockville residents Marcell Jordan Hebron, 26, and Leilani Marroquin, 27, according to a hearing Tuesday in Montgomery County District Court. Stoev, a Derwood resident, was taken into custody at noon Friday after police located him at a Rockville hotel where the shootings allegedly occurred, according to charging documents.
District Court Judge Patrick Mays found Stoev was a danger to others and ordered him held without bond. In addition to facing two counts of first-degree murder, Stoev is charged with two counts of use of a firearm during a violent crime.
Stoev’s lawyer, Audrey Creighton, declined to comment Tuesday to Bethesda Today, but said in court that Stoev was an alumnus of Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.
Marroquin’s family created a GoFundMe for funeral support for the pair. As of Tuesday afternoon, the GoFundMe had raised more than $24,700 of its $35,000 goal.
“We are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Leilani Marroquin, our beloved niece, and her friend Marcell,” The GoFundMe said. “We are devastated and cannot imagine life without these beautiful souls.”
Hebron was found by police shortly after 3 a.m. Friday in a vehicle stopped at the intersection of Shady Grove Road and Research Boulevard.
An officer on routine patrol came across the stopped vehicle around 3:15 a.m. and found the body inside, police Public Information Officer Carlos Cortes told Bethesda Today.
According to police radio transmissions, the officer noticed a white BMW with “bullet holes in the side of it” and “a subject inside, possibly DOA.” DOA stands for “dead on arrival.”
Marroquin’s body was discovered around 7:40 a.m. when Rockville City police officers responded to the Sleep Inn Hotel at 2 Research Court for the report of a “deceased person,” Cortes said.
When the officers arrived, they found “a dead adult female with apparent gunshot wounds and shell casings in the parking lot,” police said in Friday night’s statement. County detectives determined the two deaths were homicides and were related, according to police.
Cortes said that once Rockville police found the second body, officers contacted the county police department to continue the investigation.
According to charging documents, police learned after discovering the two bodies that an employee of the Sleep Inn Hotel saw someone with a gun in the early morning hours on Friday. The person was identified as Stoev, who checked into the hotel Thursday with an expected checkout date of Monday, the documents said.
Staff told police that Stoev left abruptly at roughly 5:30 a.m. Friday, carrying a duffle bag and backpack and sweating profusely, charging documents said. Video surveillance captured someone police believed to be Stoev running from the area of Shady Grove Road toward the hotel around the time Hebron’s body was found.
While police were investigating, Stoev returned to the hotel and was taken into custody, the charging documents said.
While in custody, Stoev told police that he arranged to buy marijuana from Hebron, whom he’d known for 12 years. According to court documents, Stoev told police that he walked out of the hotel and got into the back seat of Hebron’s car with a ghost gun in his possession at roughly 3 a.m. Stoev said Hebron was in the driver’s seat and Marroquin, a female friend of Hebron’s, was in the front passenger seat.
According to the charging documents, Stoev said Hebron pulled a gun from his own waistband when Stoev entered the car, after which Stoev pulled out his gun and began firing at Hebron. Stoev told police that he saw Marroquin get a gun from the glove box area as he was getting out of the car.
Stoev said he fired several times at Marroquin and saw her fall to the parking lot. He then checked Marroquin and, believing she was dead, took her phone and discarded it in the bushes to hide it from police, charging documents said.
Then, according to charging documents, Stoev got into the driver’s side, sitting on Hebron whom he believed was dead, to drive the car. He had driven from the parking lot of the Research Court hotel to the area of Shady Grove Road and Research Boulevard when the car stopped moving, charging documents said. Stoev told police he planned to hide the car in a wooded area but abandoned it when the car stopped working.
Stoev said he returned to the hotel, which was captured on surveillance footage, charging documents said. When he returned, he dropped his gun onto the floor of the breakfast area in the hotel, which the employee reported seeing. He then left the hotel again to go to a nearby Home Depot, and was taken into custody by police when he returned later. According to the documents, Stoev was carrying a ghost gun and a semi-automatic handgun in his backpack when he was stopped.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Stoev for 10 a.m. Feb. 14, according to court proceedings.
Bethesda Today editor Julie Rasicot contributed to this report