A man has been charged with murder nearly four years after a fatal shooting in the parking lot of a onetime St. Paul bar.

Devante Lattrele Jennings, 28, was charged Monday with second-degree intentional murder and second-degree unintentional murder while committing a felony in connection with the killing of 33-year-old Michael Gray outside Johnny Baby's bar on May 4, 2019. Jennings is currently in prison for possession of a firearm by an ineligible person and was scheduled for release later this month.

According to the charging document:

Police were called about 2 a.m. to Johnny Baby's bar at University Avenue and Chatsworth Street on reports of a parking lot shooting. They arrived to find Gray facedown with gunshot wounds to an arm and the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officers found four bullet casings nearby that appeared to have been fired from the same gun. Through a witness statement and surveillance footage, they learned Gray was trying to get into the back of a white Kia sedan parked in the bar's lot before one of the occupants leaned out and shot him.

Three people were suspected of being in the car at that time. Investigators traced license plates on the Kia back to its owner, who said they had given the sedan to a man referred to as "TC" in the charging documents in order to fix its brakes. TC was found with the Kia days later and said he was at the bar that night but had loaned the car to someone else on the night of the murder.

Investigators searched the Kia and found a matchbook, fingerprints and a cigarette butt inside and sent them to the Forensic Services Unit for analysis.

Another man interviewed by police, Wayne Brown, said the white Kia resembled the car he arrived in at Johnny Baby's that night. He denied being in the car at the time of the murder, saying that he left in a different vehicle.

Documents say Brown, 29, was murdered near St. Paul Saloon on Sept. 28, 2019, by Gray's friends, although no charges have been filed in connection with his killing.

Jennings said that he knew Brown and bought drugs from TC, but he denied knowing Gray, explaining that he was at his brother's home the night of the murder. But the forensic unit finished comparing fingerprints pulled from the Kia on Nov. 22 of last year and found that Jennings' prints were the ones taken from inside the sedan.

Surveillance footage from the bar showed Jennings, TC and Brown, along with Gray, without any apparent altercation before the shooting.

Investigators interviewed Jennings again on March 1 at Moose Lake prison, identifying him as the man captured in surveillance photos at Willard's Liquors and Johnny Baby's on the night of the murder. Documents say that Jennings looked at the photos and sighed, adding that he did not deny being the one in those photos. He then said that he would wait to speak with the investigator at the Ramsey County jail with an attorney.