Durham, N.C. — Police on Wednesday were searching for a man who has served time for assault in a 1999 drive-by shooting but who now faces a murder charge because the victim died last month.

A grand jury Monday indicted Michael Rashad Kee, 29, in the June 14, 1999, shooting of 16-year-old Candace Mitchell.

Mitchell was riding with four friends in a van on Barton Street when several shots were fired from outside the van. Investigators said she wasn't the intended target.

She was shot in the head and had been in a coma until she died from complications of her injury on Jan. 24.

Kee served more than six years in prison after he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill for shooting Mitchell.

Durham County Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cline said, however, that it is important to re-charge someone when the victim's status changes, even though it's almost nine years after the crime.

"He has not been punished for the taking of a life. That's totally different than surviving an assault," Cline said. "You have to take into account the victim's family, charge for the correct crime and look at what the statute requires the punishment to be."

State law changed about 10 years ago, she said, allowing the state to prosecute for murder so long after the victim's condition changed. Until that time, law only allowed for such a charge up to a year and a day later.

Kee is described as black, 5 feet, 11 inches tall and 270 pounds. His last known address was on Sprucewood Drive.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call the Durham Police Department at 919-560-4440 or Crime Stoppers at 919-683-1200.