The death of 16-year-old Katie Burdick-Crow happened after police say she tried to stop four people who allegedly stole marijuana she was selling them Friday night, according to a search warrant obtained before charging the four with murder.

Burdick-Crow died early Saturday morning in a situation police describe as a drug deal gone wrong.

Police say the Green Hope High student fell from the side rail of a pickup truck after the driver, Joshua Odell Simmons, punched her in the face and head as he was driving away from Walnut Street Park, police wrote in their request for the warrant to search Simmons’ father’s 2003 Ford F150 pickup.

Those charged are Simmons, 17, a rising senior at Panther Creek; Jourdan Chanquion Mack, 20, who graduated from Green Hope High in 2014; Abijah James Masse, 17, a rising senior at Green Hope; and Beth Marie Strange, 18, who graduated from Cary’s Panther Creek High School in June.

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All four were denied bail Monday during their first appearance in front of District Court Judge Keith Gregory, who told the four they could potentially face the death penalty or life in prison.

In search warrants, Cary police laid out the fatal scenario they said began with a plan for Burdick-Crow to sell marijuana to Masse at the park on Lawrence Road, not far from Walnut Street’s intersection with Buck Jones Road.

Masse and Mack got out of a truck to meet Burdick-Crow, according to investigators who interviewed three witnesses and Mack, Masse and Simmons.

Burdick-Crow would not show the pair the marijuana, police said the suspects told them.

The two went back to the truck. Then, Mack and Strange walked to where Burdick-Crow was standing and stole the drug from her, the search warrant application said.

Mack and Strange took off on foot, and Simmons began to drive the truck away to pick them up, police wrote.

Burdick-Crow jumped onto a side rail of the pickup and was trying to stop it, reaching through the open driver’s side window, an affidavit from Detective J.A. Young said.

Simmons “advised that as he accelerated the ... truck, he punched Burdick-Crow in the face and head” two or three times, and she fell to the pavement.

Burdick-Crow died at WakeMed Raleigh hospital about 1:25 a.m. Saturday, Young told a magistrate who granted the search warrant.

Police charged the four on Sunday morning, about 12 hours after searching the truck. Police told the magistrate they wanted to look for blood or other fluids, hair, fibers, fingerprints, palm prints and shoeprints on the truck.

They also wanted to find out whether there were any drugs or drug paraphernalia in the truck or any information about drug transactions, they wrote.

A fifth person who police said is a Panther Creek student, was not charged.

First appearance

Monday, many of their parents sat in the benches as their children faced Gregory for the first time.

Julian Michael Hall, a lawyer involved in the case, shook his head while telling colleagues the case revolved around “a quarter bag of weed.” A quarter bag of marijuana equates to roughly a quarter of an ounce.

Several of the defendants’ attorneys asked for bonds to be reduced Monday, one of them suggesting $3 million, but Gregory declined.

“This is a murder,” he said. “There will not be a bond at all.”

Masse’s parents and pastor came to Monday’s hearing. Hall, the Raleigh attorney, described Masse as “a very good kid” involved in youth ministry and with no prior criminal record.

“Mr. Masse has a lot of community support,” Hall said. “It’s a very tragic situation for all families involved. These are not bad kids you are dealing with. … You’re not looking at this thing as a typical murder.”

Hall declined to say why Masse would have been involved in what police called a drug transaction. Hall also would not elaborate on the relationship between the other suspects.

Of those charged in the case, only Mack had a criminal history, having been charged with felony larceny earlier this year. That case appeared from court records to have been dismissed after Mack paid $191 in restitution.

Busy area

In the past year, police have responded to eight drug cases within a half mile of Walnut Street Park, which sits near Walnut Street’s intersection with Buck Jones Road, Cary spokeswoman Carrie Roman said Monday. The address sits between Crossroads Plaza and Cary Towne Center, a busy area.

“Walnut Street Park is a national award-winning park,” she said.

Tributes to Burdick-Crow began pouring onto social media sites, calling the rising senior “a wonderful person.” One of them, tweeting as @BrookeAFortune, called on friends to wear tie-dyed clothing on July 26 in her friend’s honor.

“I think Katie would have loved it,” she wrote, “and let’s create a colorful city she can look down on.”

Fortune said in an interview that she chose the date in July because it will come one month after her friend’s death.

“Tie-dye was her favorite color,” said Fortune, 16, a classmate at Green Hope, “and she would always dye her hair. There’s been so much on Twitter about the kids who hit her, and I wanted to do something to remember her.”

Those who attend Burdick-Crow’s funeral are asked to wear tie-dye attire, according to her obituary. Visitation will be Friday, July 3, at 10 a.m. at Hope Chapel, 6175 Old Jenks Road, Apex. The funeral will be at noon.

Witness account

Luke Warren Eason, 17, said he was hanging out with Burdick-Crow at the park on Friday and saw most of what happened. He returned to the park on Sunday to lay flowers there with another friend, O.C. Stephanoff.

Eason said that on Friday he stayed a few dozen feet behind Burdick-Crow as she greeted people she told him were her friends. He said Burdick-Crow was talking to people that he’d never met near the park entrance on Lawrence Road when he heard her scream and run toward the pickup the group of four arrived in.

“She screamed something back at me and I didn’t hear it,” he said.

Eason said he then saw Burdick-Crow run after the pickup and jump on its side as it pulled away.

“She was holding, like standing straight up … and she just fell off,” he said.

A 911 caller alerted authorities about an injured person on Lawrence Road at about 9:20 p.m. Friday, according to Cary police.

Staff writer Paul A. Specht contributed.