The gunman wore "distinctive" shoes, witnesses told police. That shred of a clue helped investigators in their search for who shot 21-year-old Kevin Maurice Braziel several times in a parking lot in the 2100 block of W. Broadway in Minneapolis on June 24. He died two weeks later.

On Wednesday, Marlon Rashaad Robertson, 22, of Robbinsdale, was charged with second-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and first-degree witness tampering in Braziel's death, police said.

A few days after the shooting, the gun used to kill Braziel was sold in a deal where the seller told the buyer he knew it worked because he had recently "emptied it." The gun was matched to the homicide through ballistics testing. After learning who had sold the gun, investigators also learned that the suspected shooter believed that a man standing near Braziel was a police informant.

Authorities searched Robertson's home and found the shoes that the witnesses spoke of. Brought in for questioning, Robertson admitted that the shoes were his, and that he thought the man standing near Braziel at the time of the shooting was an informant.

MATT McKINNEY