By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

ROSELAWN - Cincinnati police were still sorting out a bizarre killing Monday that left a man dead while waiting for his taxes to be prepared and his girlfriend being forced to drove the getaway car with the suspected shooter and a 2-year-old inside.

The victim, Eion Dejenai Carter, 24, of College Hill, had signed in at the H&R Block on Seymour Avenue and was waiting for a tax preparer when his cell phone rang. He told the receptionist he'd be right back and stepped outside. He was shot in the head in the parking lot just before 2 p.m.

The investigation continued into the night when the suspected shooter, who had been holed up in a house on North Hill Lane in Springfield Township, surrendered to members of the Hamilton County Police Association SWAT team about 7 p.m.

The suspect's name had not been released Monday night.

In Cincinnati, homicide detectives were still trying to figure out the relationship among the three adults involved. . At one point, Latasha Daniels said she didn't know the man who killed her boyfriend, but police later said the three had been together before the shooting.

The accused shooter forced Daniels, who had been sitting outside in her black Honda hatchback with the child, to drive him to Springfield Township. After dropping him off near the intersection of Winton and Galbraith roads, she drove back to the Roselawn shopping center, calling 911 on the way. She told a dispatcher the victim lying in the parking lot was Carter.

Brian Ennix had stopped in the nearby CarQuest to order some parts. He heard four gunshots and went to look out the window.

"That's when I saw the black Honda pull off," he said. "I saw the gentleman getting back in the car, and then it pulled off real slow."

He walked out to check on the victim and called 911.

Carter worked at Family Dollar. He went to jail last October, sentenced to 23 days for running from a police officer. He had his driver's license suspended the same month for 180 days after pleading no contest to failing to stop after an accident.

The H&R Block, with about a dozen desks inside, was full of customers at the time of the shooting, employees said. Clients continued to come and go with their tax returns.

Some kind of altercation took place between the two men, said Lt. Kurt Byrd, department spokesman. The woman, he said, "is cooperating with us at this point."

Byrd said he first heard about the shooting on WDBZ-AM, 1230, "The Buzz." A witness called host Jay Love, he said, before police or firefighters got to the scene.

Crime-scene technicians found Carter's cell phone lying on the ground with his baseball hat.

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E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com