Alameda County prosecutors have dropped the charges against Terryan McDowell, the Richmond-based realtor who fatally shot a romantic rival at the Oakland apartment of the woman they were both seeing.

As Bay Area News Group reports, the murder case has been dismissed against 27-year-old Terryan McDowell, who was accused in the January 15 killing of 42-year-old Darnell Parker. McDowell has maintained from the start that he acted in self-defense when Parker showed up by surprise at the apartment of the woman he was dating. And the weapon he used was registered to him and he was permitted to carry it.

McDowell fled the scene of the shooting but later called police, saying that he went elsewhere out of fear he had been set up by his then-girlfriend.

Prosecutors filed a murder charge against McDowell in early February, his attorney successfully argued for his release on $150,000 bail, and subsequently prosecutors dropped the charge, saying they did not believe they could convince a jury that this was not an act of self-defense.

It's unclear when an Alameda County court formally dismissed the case — the news group report suggests that the charges were dropped within six weeks of them being filed in February. But there is a court record of a hearing in which Parker's mother, Kimberly Hypolite, complained about a shoddy investigation by Oakland police, and  said that justice should still be served.

"I mean, I feel like there’s two men that got caught up in some craziness with a woman, but there’s still accountability there," Hypolite said to the judge, per Bay Area News Group.

Judge Kimberly Colwell reportedly told the mother she understood the family's pain and the lack of justice, but she said she had to dismiss the case for lack of evidence.

The shooting occurred at an apartment on the 9400 block of International Boulevard in Oakland, and Parker reportedly showed up there around 11 pm on the night of January 15 and refused to leave. McDowell says that Parker threatened to "pop" him, and he remained outside the woman's door for an extended period, then left, and then returned, angrily demanding $50 from the woman for recently having her car washed.

The girlfriend reportedly opened the door to confront Parker, and her dog got outside. McDowell went out after the dog, and it was outside the apartment that the two men got into some sort of altercation in which Parker was shot.

McDowell fled the scene and shortly thereafer turned himself in to police. He was not initially arrested for any crime.

McDowell's attorney argued at a bail hearing that his client was an upstanding businessman with his own real estate business, and that he volunteered for a local church group.

The defense attorney later asked the court why prosecutors had ever charged the case in the first place.

Charges were filed less than a week after new Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson took office.

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