Court records describe Port Orchard homicide, teen drug deal, Gig Harbor shootout

Documents in the homicide of a Port Orchard teenager tell a gruesome tale involving a ping from the dead man’s phone, a shootout in suburban Gig Harbor, and a body burned in Mason County.

In a statement of probable cause filed Oct. 22 in Kitsap County Superior Court, detectives laid out a two-day series of events that allegedly involved a drug deal, a kidnapping caught on video, and a search by the teenager’s friends.

Kitsap County deputies allege Tyrone Sero, 19, of Port Orchard, was shot in the back of the head early Wednesday, Oct. 20 while sitting in a car trying to sell a pound of marijuana. His body was then driven to a remote spot near Matlock and burned in a fire pit, investigators said.

Kannon Anthony Stephens, 19, of Gig Harbor; Karlen Merle Talent, 20, of Port Orchard; and 19-year-old Eli M. Gregory were arrested in connection with the homicide.

Detectives said Stephens turned himself in Oct. 21 and Talent was arrested a few hours later. Gregory was arrested Oct. 29 and as of then had yet to be charged.

Stephens and Talent each pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Kitsap County Superior Court, where Judge Tina Robinson kept their bail at $1 million. A pretrial hearing is set for Nov. 10.

Stephens, who lives in the Eastbay area of Gig Harbor, attended Gig Harbor High School, Henderson Bay alternative high school and the Tacoma Community College Running Start program, the district confirmed.

Gregory attended Peninsula schools partway through high school, then transferred out of the district, spokesperson Aimee Gordon said. Talent gave deputies a Port Orchard address.

In the statement of probable cause, a Kitsap County sheriff’s detective alleges that the three young men lured Sero into their car on the premise of buying a pound of marijuana. An argument broke out and Sero was shot in the back of the head, detectives said.

Charging papers give this account of what happened:

The three men then drove the body to a wooded site near Matlock in Mason County and burned it in a fire pit.

When Sero failed to return from the meeting at a Port Orchard convenience store, friends and family went to Stephen’s home in the Bayside area of Gig Harbor, where a gun battle ensued, leaving one of the teenagers wounded.

Port Orchard Snapchat meeting

Sero had been selling small amounts of marijuana for about six months, using Snapchat, Kitsap County sheriff’s Detective Dave Meyer wrote in charging papers. A friend told detectives he had been selling about half a pound a week. (Currently, marijuana sells for between $800 and $1,600 a pound, depending on quality, said Sgt. Darren Moss of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.)

Sero told his friend that Stephens had asked to buy a whole pound, and he was uncomfortable selling such a large amount to someone he didn’t know. But he and Stephens agreed to meet at 9 a.m. Oct. 19 at a convenience store near Southeast Lund Avenue and Jackson Avenue Southeast in Port Orchard, the friend told deputies. However, there was a disagreement and Stephens did not make the buy, his friend told detectives.

The two men continued to negotiate on Snapchat, detectives said, and arranged a second meeting, this time at a building just behind the convenience store.

Video from security cameras shows Sero getting into a Silver Toyota 4Runner about 12:40 a.m, according to the statement of probable cause.

Three men were in the car: Talent in the driver’s seat, the third man, later identified as Gregory, and Stephens, as he later allegedly told detectives, hiding in the rear cargo area with a gun.

At that point, stories diverge.

A security camera video shows Sero getting into the front seat, struggling with someone and apparently being pulled into the back seat, Meyer wrote.

But Stephens said Sero got in the back seat, pulled a gun and immediately demanded the money.

“Kannon (Stephens) said he then heard a commotion and a shot from Tyrone’s gun,” the detective wrote. “Kannon sat up and saw Karlen (Talent) exiting the vehicle. Kannon said he thought Tyrone shot Karlen, so in defense of his friend, he shot Tyrone in the back of his head, killing him instantly.”

Meyer said none of that coincides with the video. An eyewitness said he heard “a pop like a firecracker” as the 4Runner sped out of the parking lot.

“It appears Tyrone was kidnapped and murdered almost instantly after getting in the 4Runner,” the detective wrote.

Gig Harbor shooting

When Sero failed to return from the drug deal after nearly two hours, his friends became worried. Several of them drove to the convenience store, detectives said, and demanded that the clerk replay the surveillance video. He did, and photographs of the 4Runner were taken and circulated widely on social media.

“Somehow, they connected the car to a house in Gig Harbor, and assumed he was being held there,” Sgt. Darren Moss, public information officer for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, told The Gateway. About 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 20, friends and family of Sero rushed in two cars to a house near Sullivan Drive and 25th Street Northwest.

The homeowner, a 60-year-old man, was driving home on the dead-end street, he told deputies, when several young men jumped out of the bushes, yelling at him. He yelled back and went into the house, Moss said.

“Then two or three cars came down the drive and start shooting at the house,” Moss recounted. “The (homeowner) comes out of the house with his own gun and starts shooting back.”

One of the people in the cars, a 16-year-old male, was struck by a bullet. It is not clear whether it was fired by the homeowner or by one of his companions, Moss said. His friends took him to St. Anthony Hospital, where he was treated for a non-life-threatening wound.

The attackers left behind one of the cars, riddled with bullet holes. It turned out to have been stolen from Kitsap County, Moss said.

Pierce County deputies, unaware of the earlier events, took a report and made no arrests. Deputies interviewed the wounded teen and his friends, but they all denied having a gun or doing any shooting.

Among the people in the house during the shootout were Stephens and Talent, Moss confirmed.

Ping locates victim’s phone

Meanwhile, someone had called 911 to report Sero missing. Kitsap County deputies asked Verizon Wireless to “ping” Sero’s cellphone. Verizon said the phone’s last known location was within 13 miles of a cell tower in the Matlock area of Mason County at about 2:17 a.m. — or about an hour and a half after the 4Runner was seen leaving Port Orchard.

On Thursday, Oct. 21, Kannon Stephens and his attorney arrived at the Sheriff’s Office in Port Orchard, where Stephens, in the presence of his attorney, confessed to shooting and killing Sero, Meyer wrote.

Stephens allegedly told deputies he and his two friends abandoned the 4Runner in the parking lot of a store in the 11000 block of 53rd Avenue in Gig Harbor.

Stephens took deputies to the property in Mason County where the body had been burned. He allegedly told them he had returned the next day by himself and put Sero’s remains in three bags. Two of them he threw in a river, he told deputies. The third he put in his car, which he drove back to Gig Harbor.

The 4Runner, which was registered to Talent, was located in the store parking lot, Meyer said.

The amount of blood in the vehicle: “would be consistent with a gunshot wound to the head,” he wrote.

Staff writer Peter Talbot contributed to this report.

This story was originally published October 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM.