By
Elisha Fieldstadt
-
NBC News
A Texas man who reacted to the presence of an unknown car in his driveway by fatally shooting the driver was charged last week with murder.
Terry Duane Turner, 65, was arrested Friday and charged with murdering Adil Dghoughi, according to the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office.
Agents responded to reports of a shooting in Martindale, about 40 miles south of downtown Austin, around 3:30 a.m. (local time) on October 11 and found that
Dghoughi had been shot in his vehicle.
The man was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Turner told police that he had woken up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and saw an unfamiliar car in his driveway, the KXAN station reported citing an affidavit.
Adil Dghoughi immigrated to the United States from Morocco in 2013.
Turner claimed the car's lights were off so he went to get his gun.
When he looked at the vehicle again, the lights were on and the driver "began accelerating rapidly backward," according to the affidavit.
The man chased the car, smashed the window on the victim's side with his gun, and then fired through it.
When he called the police, he said, "I just killed a person."
"He tried to point a gun at me and I fired," he added.
Police did not find any weapons inside Dghoughi's Audi.
The victim had immigrated to the United States from Morocco in 2013 and obtained a master's degree in financial analysis from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has called for a thorough investigation of his murder.
[New video reveals that the young Latino who was shot by the police in California was not armed]
Following Turner's arrest, CAIR-Austin Executive Director Faizan Syed stated:
“We celebrate the arrest, but our work is not done.
We will continue to call for justice
for Adil Dghoughi's family and for all families in Texas and across the country affected by gun violence. "
“The
Stand your ground
laws
have a history of being used to commit legal violence against people of color across the nation,” Syed said, “This incident is tragic for the family who lost a loved one under suspicious circumstances.
We call for an independent and transparent investigation into the murder of Mr. Dghoughi, who was unarmed and in his vehicle when he was shot. "
"I would like to give you a hug": young man who received a kidney from 'Mona' Rodríguez thanks the family
Oct. 9, 202101: 36
CAIR hosted a vigil for Dghoughi in front of the Texas Capitol in Austin on Saturday.
A GoFundMe campaign for her family has already raised $ 45,000.
Turner posted bail and was released, Kyle McConnell, a patrol lieutenant for the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office, told NBC News on Monday.
CAIR and Dghoughi's family expressed frustration that it took more than a week to arrest Turner.
[Brian Laundrie's autopsy remains the enigma of how Gabby Petito's boyfriend died in a Florida swamp]
"Why did it take 10 days to make the arrest?" His brother, Othmane Dghoughi, told KXAN.
In addition, he said the family believes his brother Adil may have been lost while driving from Austin to his girlfriend's home in Maxwell, just north of Martindale.