Holding his mother's hand, fugitive Candale Dekota Hall, 24 was just feet away from turning himself in to police for allegedly shooting four-year-old Isaiah Nicholas over the weekend when we caught up to him.
We asked, "What would you like to say in defense of yourself?"
"I didn't do it," Hall replied.
Hall claims he doesn't know who did the shooting when Isaiah was struck by a bullet while inside his grandmother's northeast Houston home Saturday on Madera Road.
Investigators say Hall's girlfriend had just broken up with him. They say he followed her to a nearby home, where he believed she was about to meet a man and shot the house up. There was no lover inside, and instead little Isaiah was shot in the forehead.
"I feel bad. I feel sorry for him and his family," Hall told Eyewitness News. "I would like to apologize about what's going on and what's happened."
Before being handcuffed Hall gave his mother one last hug and then it was off to jail. His mother says she stands by her son.
"I honestly believe. I honestly believe he did not do this," said Mary Tarver.
Little Isaiah, on life support over the weekend, is now breathing on his own.
"The bullet went through his head, down, right here through his mouth and ended up being in his throat," said Isaiah's father Greg Nicholas.
Nicholas, at this point, has no sympathy in his heart for the man he knows shot his son.
"It's good he turned himself in, but for him to say he ain't guilty, that just erased the fact," Nicholas said. "I see now he is just trying to look for sympathy for himself."
Nicholas says the shooting of his little boy underscores a much bigger problem in society.
"I don't like to use racist things and I'm not," he said. "Black people, man, we make these excuses for stuff, but we're killing our own people and it ain't right. It ain't right."
Isaiah is now off life support and breathing on his own. He does recognize his parents but cannot talk. We're told he is shaking his head for yes and now. Doctors are reportedly calling the four-year-old a miracle boy.
Hall is charged with aggravated assault.
