KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Prosecutors on Thursday charged a 20-year-old Kansas City man in connection with two shooting deaths.

They charged Michael E. Pogue with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action in connection with the deaths of an 18-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman who was four months pregnant.

The man and woman were killed Wednesday night at a house near near East Ninth Street and Indiana Avenue.

Police hadn't yet released the victims' names by Thursday evening, but members of the man's family identified him as J.J. Meridith, 18, and the woman as his brother's girlfriend.

Meridith was about to become a father for the first time before he was gunned down on his friend's porch, his relatives said.

"The baby's not going to get a chance to know its father," said Adrian Meridith, J.J. Meridith's aunt.

When police arrested Pogue, they said he denied shooting the victims.

According to a probable cause statement, a witness claimed to have seen Pogue and three other men armed with assault rifles approaching the house.

At the time, the witness said that J.J. Meridith was outside and that he saw Pogue speaking to J.J. Meridith, according to the court document.

The pregnant woman was asleep on the couch inside, according to the court document.

The witness also was inside the house, but he hid when he saw the armed men, according to the court document.

While he was hiding, he heard numerous gunshots, so he remained hiding until police arrived, according to the court document.

Police picked up Pogue's girlfriend to question her, and she told them that several times, Pogue had been to the house where the victims were shot looking for drugs and/or money she said was owed to him, according to the court document.