Ayana Velardo and Natasha Dixon had a history and not a good one.
Wilkes-Barre police don’t elaborate on that history in court papers, but Dixon and Velardo had more angry words early Saturday inside the Mila hookah lounge on Hazle Street.
About an hour later, Velardo, 30, lay bleeding from a bullet to the throat in a parking lot across the street.
Police say Dixon shot her, then “smiled,” according to an arrest affidavit filed by city detectives James Fisher and Jason Dudick and Luzerne County Detective Alexandra Nolan.
A witness, police officers and paramedics tried resuscitating Velardo, but she had no pulse and never responded. She was pronounced dead later at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center.
Fisher, Dudick and Nolan charged Dixon, 35, of 27 Edison St., Wilkes-Barre, with criminal homicide.
A bump started it
Velardo, known as Yanni, sat in a back room about 2:30 a.m. when Dixon, known as Tosha, bumped her.
Velardo immediately reacted.
“The witness and others separated the two of them,” the detectives wrote in an arrest affidavit.
A female witness and a male witness later saw Dixon cross Hazle Street to the parking lot where Velardo stood.
“Yanni said to Tosha, ‘What’s up?’” the female witness told police.
The male witness, who did not know Dixon, said he saw her fire a single shot at Velardo and flee in a blue minivan, according to the affidavit.
The shooter smiled
Another witness offered the same story of Dixon crossing the street in search of Velardo.
“Tosha looked at Yanni after shooting her and smiled,” the witness told police.
As the witness tried to help Velardo, she noticed another woman “trying to get her belongings from inside the van” as Dixon began to speed away, according to the affidavit.
“This girl was almost run over,” the detectives wrote.
Video camera recorded shooting
The detectives found surveillance video from a camera near the parking lot.
The video shows a group of about eight men and women crossing Hazle Street about 3:46 a.m.
Less than 20 seconds later, another woman “is observed running toward the group” and “holding something in her left hand.”
“The female is seen approaching the group, raises her right arm holding a dark object and a flash appears similar to what would be observed when discharging a firearm,” the detectives wrote in the affidavit.
Witnesses told police the shooter placed the gun in her purse.
The suspect jumps in a blue minivan, according to the video.
Witnesses ID shooter
A witness told police where the shooter lives.
They also discovered a police call earlier this year involving “Natasha Dixon with a gun,” according to the affidavit.
The affidavit did not detail that incident, but police found a blue minivan was associated with that one, too and ran a search on the license plate.
Mother-in-law helps police
They found the minivan belongs to Dixon’s husband’s adoptive mother.
They went to see the mother.
“Are you here for Natasha?” Dixon’s mother-in-law immediately said after seeing police in her doorway.
“The (minivan’s) owner also stated she has been in contact with Natasha on the phone and that Natasha is upset and staying with a family member,” the detectives wrote in the affidavit.
The document does not say where police found Dixon.
Magisterial District Judge Joseph D. Spagnuolo Jr. denied Dixon bail, as required by law in homicide cases, and ordered her jailed in the Luzerne County Prison.
Spagnuolo scheduled her preliminary hearing for Aug. 18 at 10 a.m.
