New London - One of two people suspected of participating in an early-morning shooting death is in police custody and faces a murder charge.

Evan J. Holmes, 20, of 46 Williams St. was arrested about 10:45 a.m. Saturday at the Days Inn in Old Saybrook by officers from the Old Saybrook, New London, state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and state police departments.

Holmes was charged with murder, home invasion and first-degree burglary.

As of Saturday evening, police were still looking for a second suspect, Davion Smith, 18, of 93 State Pier Road, Apt. E7. He is wanted for the same charges as Holmes' and should be considered armed and dangerous, according to Deputy Chief Marshall Segar.

Smith, who is believed to be in the greater New Haven area, is described as 5-foot-4-inches tall and weighing about 130 pounds with a dark complexion. Smith, who turned 18 last December, has no known criminal record in Connecticut.

Holmes, the suspect arrested Saturday, was in January found guilty of second-degree assault for an incident that occurred in April 2010. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison; it is unclear how much of the sentence he served.

In that case, Holmes was charged with shooting 17-year-old Idris Elahi in the foot outside the Elks Club on Green Street. The two teens had known each other for years and started playing football together as 10-year-olds, according to past articles in The Day.

Elahi is accused of fatally stabbing Matthew Chew in New London on Oct. 29, 2010.

Police responded to 252 Montauk Ave. at 4:17 a.m. for a report of a shooting and found a man on the third floor of the house with fatal gunshot wounds, Segar said. The victim's name has not been released.

Segar said police believe the victim and the suspects "are known to each other." No other information on that relationship or on a motive for the crime was released.

Police were outside the green, three-story home for much of Saturday. Montauk Avenue continued to be cordoned off from Alger Place to Avery Court at 5:30 p.m.

Earlier in the day, a pumpkin sat on the stoop of the home, and wind chimes blew in the front yard. The home is just south of the Montauk Avenue Baptist Church.

A neighbor said she awoke around 4:30 a.m. to flashing police lights but thought nothing of it. When she got up at 6:30 a.m. to wake her fiancé for work, she saw the lights and the state police Major Crime Unit truck and realized something serious had happened.

The neighbor said police told her they were looking for two suspects who may be in a white Crown Victoria.

The neighbor, who has three young children, said she thought people were dealing drugs at 252 Montauk Ave. She is planning to move, she said.

"This just pushes it even more," she said from her front steps.

"You've got people going in and out of that house all the time," she said. "People parking all over the street and running in or people running out. I don't want gunshots flying through my house."

Reached in Old Saybrook, Alex Struzinski said he was at work across Route 1 from the Days Inn in Old Saybrook when police officers began to arrive around 10:30 a.m. A team of officers, some wielding riot shields and leading police dogs, approached the motel, he said. Struzinski said officers knocked down the door of a hotel room with a battering ram and apprehended a suspect.

"There were weapons involved because I heard the cops screaming to put the gun down," Struzinski said. "It was pretty wild."

The owner of 252 Montauk Ave., Thomas J. Faber of Waterford, could not be reached for comment.

s.goldstein@theday.com

j.cho@theday.com