KENTWOOD, Mich. — A Kent County judge ordered Javonte Higgins to stand trial Monday for the double murder of David and Vivian Bouwman.
Higgins, 22, is accused of murdering the Kentwood couple in their Jan. 5.
The decision came Monday afternoon after two new witnesses testified during day two of a preliminary hearing. Higgins sat quietly as his friend, Kevon Jackson, took the stand.
Jackson said Higgins showed up at his home the evening of Jan. 4 and he acted differently than usual. The next morning, he said Higgins stopped by his home around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m.
“He knocked on the door, and he asked me to roll with him to get rid of a car, and I told him ‘no,'” Jackson recalled.
The other witness to take the stand was Domonique Beal, who is currently in jail for domestic violence.
Beal said he was at his child’s mother’s apartment the night the Bouwmans were killed. That morning, his girlfriend woke him up because a car was burning outside of her window.
“It was like he was dumping something in the car, and then that’s when i seen the car go up in flames,” Beal said. He added that the man then dropped a reddish orange bucket and ran away from the scene limping.
Monday, a detective who testified on the first day of the preliminary hearing was called back to the stand. She said that Beal helped police draw a composite sketch of the man who had the bucket.
Also on day one, a detective testified that the VIN number on the burning Cadillac came back to David Bouwman.
Higgins trial date hasn’t been set. He’s in the Kent County Jail on a $1 million bond.
