Authorities charged a white Baltimore man with murder after he confessed to the tragic killing of his next-door neighbor, an aspiring Black boxer who won a National Golden Gloves title last month as one of the top amateur fighters in the country.
Nicholas Francis Xavier Giroux, 36, was ordered held without bond on charges of first- and second-degree murder in the shooting death of 27-year-old Isaiah Olugbemi on June 17.
Giroux has been jailed at the Jennifer Road Detention Center since the day after Olugbemi was gunned down in front of his house in Odenton.
Giroux confessed to the killing during an interview with Anne Arundel police on June 18, officials said, according to the Capital Gazette.
Olugbemi was standing outside his residence when the gunman walked up to him and opened fire in cold blood, police said.
In another tragic twist, the victim’s sister, Maryland social media creator Rebecca Olugbemi, was filming a live makeup tutorial when her microphone picked up the crackle of gunfire that killed her brother just outside her window.
The deadly blasts erupted around 9:45 p.m., just as Rebecca Olugbemi was demonstrating skin care products on camera, as shown in a snippet posted to the platform X by an NBC Washington reporter.
Moments later, she was shocked to learn that these were the same shots that killed her brother.
“He always looked out for everyone and made sure that everyone was good,” the grieving woman told NBC Washington. “I just want them to know. And he was just a hard worker. Anything that he wanted, he went after it.”
On the night of the shooting, police were called to the corner of Meadowmist Way and Stehlik Drive in Odenton, where they found Olugbemi mortally wounded but still breathing after he was shot more than a dozen times.
Paramedics tried to save the bullet-riddled fighter, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
According to court papers, police recovered 9 mm cartridges at the crime scene.
A judge in Anne Arundel County scheduled Giroux’s first hearing for July 17 at Annapolis District Court, where the suspect is expected to enter a plea.
Investigators obtained surveillance footage from around the crime scene, showing a white man, later identified as Giroux, approaching Olugbemi with a handgun, firing multiple times, and fleeing, leaving Olugbemi crumpled on the pavement in a pool of blood, according to court papers.
Police have not revealed a possible motive for the killing, but relatives suggested that an ongoing beef between Olugbemi and Giroux culminated with last week’s fatal shooting.
The victim’s brother, Abraham Olugbemi, told station WJZ that Giroux lived next door to Isaiah Olugbemi and alleged that Giroux had threatened to shoot him on at least two other occasions this year, once in January and again in June.
The prosecutor characterized the shooting as an “execution,” recounting that Giroux unloaded between six to 14 shots at Olugbemi before pausing briefly and then pumping another three bullets into the man as he lay defenseless on the ground.
Olugbemi was quickly making a name for himself on the local boxing circuit and was planning to turn professional by the end of the year, according to the owner of the Anne Arundel County gym, where he trained three times a day and became an inspiration to many younger fighters.
Friends said Olugbemi would bring his 2-year-old son to the gym to show him the ropes.
“I just want people to know that my brother was a great father, a great man,” Daniel Olugbemi told NBC Washington. “He just wanted to be nothing but a great boxer.”
Olugbemi won his last amateur bout on June 15, just a couple of days before he was slain, and in May, he took home a coveted Golden Gloves Championship trophy following a national competition in Washington, D.C.
“The last text I sent to him was right after he won the fight, and I was like, ‘I’m so proud of you; you accomplished your dreams, man, congratulations,” Olugbemi’s close friend Jim Hook told WJZ News. “He really was a leader and was motivating and inspiring these younger kids that really look up to him.”
The Anne Arundel Police Department said the investigation into Olugbemi’s death is continuing as they looked into Giroux’s past to determine if he had any deeper connections to the victim.
According to WBALTV, Giroux’s defense attorney, Peter O’Neil, said his client had been harassed by neighbors before the shooting.
“There has been systematic harassment of Mr. Giroux by individuals in the neighborhood that precipitated this situation,” O’Neil said.
