A deadly shooting at a Birmingham Airbnb stemmed from a robbery plot hatched during a dice game at a birthday party, a detective testified.

A physical fight between one of the suspects and the victim was captured on home surveillance photo.

When the scuffle moved inside the Airbnb, multiple other people – some with guns – filed into the house as well and the multiple shots rang out.

Cameron Scales, 19, and Daveon Dortch, 20, are charged with capital murder during a robbery in the 2024 killing of 21-year-old Phong “Timmy” Nguyen, a Clay-Chalkville High School graduate who served in the U.S. Army Airborne Artillery.

Their arrests were announced March, nine months after Nugyen’s death.

Scales and Dortch went before Jefferson County District Judge William Bell Wednesday for a preliminary hearing.

Deputy District Attorney Charissa Henrich is prosecuting the case.

Scales is represented by attorneys Emory Anthony and Louvenia Borom.

Scales, whose sister Anitra Holloman was killed in the Hush lounge mass shooting, is among three people charged with capital murder in June 2024 slaying on First Avenue North near East Lake Park and the May 2024 shooting of a teen outside his family’s west Birmingham home.

Scales’ mother previously told AL.com he is innocent.

Dortch is represented by the Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office.

He was extradited to Alabama May 23 after being arrested in Atlanta by the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force and Birmingham police.

After the hearing, Bell ruled there was enough probable cause to send the case to a grand jury for indictment consideration.

Nguyen was killed March 3, 2024.

West Precinct officers were dispatched at 2:35 a.m. to a report of a person shot in the 900 block of Dugan Avenue.

Police entered the house and found Nugyen dead inside from a gunshot wound to the neck.

The house where the shooting happened was a short-term rental Airbnb. There was birthday party being held there for a young woman.

The U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force and Birmingham officers arrested Dortch in Atlanta. He was extradited to Alabama May 23.

Birmingham homicide Det. Nicholas Clark chronicled the events of the shooting at the hearing.

Multiple people were at the party when the shots rang out and were taken to police headquarters for questioning, but no one admitted to seeing the shooting or knowing who committed the homicide, he said.

Nguyen was found dead in the living room of the Airbnb, and investigators recovered seven shell casings.

Nguyen was at the party with his girlfriend, and did not know anybody else there, Clark said.

Clark said Nguyen’s mother spoke with her slain son’s friends to try to find out what happened and said she was given the names “Lil Cam” and “Lil Hot” as the potential suspects.

“But none of the people speaking to her were willing to come and speak with me,” the detective testified.

Video from the Airbnb showed Nguyen and a male – later identified as Scales – pushing and shoving on the front porch.

When the fight spilled inside, Clark said, multiple other people ran in behind them, some of them brandishing guns.

“You don’t see the shooting, but you hear a large number of shots,” Clark said. “Everyone that ran in, except for the victim, comes running out.”

Clark said the last person to leave the house – reportedly Scales – was limping.

He walked toward a white sedan, then went back inside the house briefly, and finally left in the white sedan.

Dortch, he said, was the second person to leave the Airbnb.

Shortly before 5 a.m., Clark said, Scales showed up at UAB Hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg.

He told patrol officers who were dispatched to the hospital that the shooting happened at an Airbnb, but he left before detectives arrived.

The investigation continued but with no arrests.

In June 2024, Clark said he was notified that Scales and Dortch had been arrested in Birmingham in a stolen Audi, and that Dortch was in possession of a gun with a Glock switch.

Clark went to speak with them in jail. Both admitted to being at the party but said they weren’t involved in the shooting and didn’t know anything about it.

In October 2024, Scales was arrested in an unrelated homicide. They were still not charged in Nugyen’s slaying at that time.

Clark testified that since Scales and Dortch were in jail, he thought maybe some of the witnesses would be more willing to talk with detectives.

One of those witnesses had since been charged of robbing an adult male at gunpoint, later kidnapping him and forcing the victim to withdraw money from an ATM.

Clark spoke with him and he told detectives he had not spoken up before because the shooters had asked everybody at the Airbnb not to say anything and that he was afraid for his safety.

The witness said there was a dice game at the party.

“During the dice game it became apparent that the victim was in possession of a great deal of cash and that Scales and Dortch hatched a plan to rob him,” Clark said.

The witness also used the same nicknames the detective had previously heard.

During the struggle between Nguyen and Scales, he told Clark, Nguyen had a gun in his waistband.

“Mr. Scales took the gun off of (Nguyen’s) hip and shot the victim,” Clark testified. “Other people, including Mr. Dortch, began shooting as well.”

“He said Mr. Scales shot first,” he said, “and then Dortch and several others shot.”

Clark said investigators have not yet identified the others who were shooting.

Under questioning from Anthony, Clark said the witness was not offered anything from police or prosecutors to testify against Scales and Dortch.

The warrants against the suspects were obtained in March 2025.