Man charged with murder in fatal Denver shooting arrested in Nebraska

A Colorado man charged with murder in a fatal March shooting in Denver’s Whittier neighborhood was arrested in Nebraska on Sunday, police said.

Zachary Terrell Rice, 30, was charged with one count of first-degree murder after the March shooting that killed 37-year-old Marvin McCullough, according to court records.

Witnesses told police that Rice and McCullough had an ongoing feud and that Rice had admitted to killing McCullough just days after the shooting, claiming it was “either me or him,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Just before 7 p.m. on March 30, Denver officers responded to reports of gunshots at East 29th Avenue and North Gilpin Street — near Fuller Park, where known gang members were hosting a neighborhood barbecue — according to Rice’s arrest warrant.

When officers arrived, they found McCullough sitting in the driver’s seat of a Gold Mercury Cougar parked across from the park with five gunshot wounds to the right side of his body, police said in the affidavit. Paramedics took the 37-year-old to the hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Police said McCullough was an “extensively documented” gang member who had attended the barbecue.

Four bullet casings were found in the car, which means the gun was most likely fired from inside the vehicle and McCullough knew the shooter, police said in the affidavit.

Rice, McCullough and three others were all inside the car at the time of the shooting, witnesses told police. At least one of the car’s other passengers told police it happened too fast to see who had shot the victim.

The Denver Police Department received five anonymous tips between March 30 and April 2, all providing information on the same suspect as well as photographs and physical descriptions, according to the affidavit. The descriptions given by the tipsters matched what witnesses in the area of the shooting told officers, police said.

All five tips pointed to a gang member named “Zachary” who went by the alias “BG” or “Baby Goose,” police said. One person said Rice had been threatening McCullough at the park before the shooting.

Rice, who was on federal probation at the time of the shooting, had previously been arrested multiple times and pleaded guilty to assault, motor vehicle theft and multiple weapons charges, according to court records.