Raistlin Martin was fifteen years old when he attacked his sleeping Grandfather with an axe in North Carolina. According to court documents Raistlin Martin was found in his Grandfather’s room with the axe covered in blood by his father who would call police. The teen killer who has a history of mental illness was convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty five years.
Raistlin Martin 2023 Information
Offender Number:
1571489
Inmate Status:
ACTIVE
Gender:
MALE
Race:
WHITE
Ethnic Group:
EUROPEAN/N.AM./AUSTR
Birth Date:
11/02/2000
Age:
19
Current Location:
FOOTHILLS CI
Raistlin Martin Other News
Cumberland County teen who killed his grandfather with a hatchet two years ago could one day be freed from prison.
Raistlin Martin, 17, pleaded guilty last week to first-degree murder in the Aug. 8, 2016, death of 63-year-old Joseph Emmett Naulty. Superior Court Judge James Ammons sentenced him Tuesday to life in prison with the possibility for parole after 25 years.
Ammons had the option of allowing the opportunity for parole instead of handling down the mandatory life without parole sentence for first-degree murder because Raistlin Martin was a juvenile when the crime happened. Prosecutors chose to try him in adult court, however.
Naulty was hit 31 times with a hatchet, including 15 wounds to his head, according to authorities. His son, Joseph Ezekiel Naulty, found him covered in blood in bed after hearing him cry out. Martin, who also was covered in blood, and a bloody hatchet were near the bed.
Raistlin Martin, who was shackled in court Tuesday, wept as prosecutors described in grisly detail the wounds the grandfather suffered in the attack
The elder Naulty was a bully to his family, his son told Ammons during the sentencing hearing.
He had moved into Joseph Ezekiel Naulty’s home on Elgin Drive after his wife died, and the younger Naulty blamed him for Martin’s April 2016 suicide attempt.
Raistlin Martin, who was named for Raistlin Majere, an anti-hero character in the “Dungeons & Dragons” saga, told people of his plans to kill his grandfather over a cellphone app.
Authorities were able to recover 107 pages of text messages that had been deleted from Martin’s iPhone in which he called his grandfather “kinda inconvenient” and stating that he wanted him dead.
Cumberland County Assistant District Attorney Robby Hicks said the messages showed Martin initially planned to poison his grandfather before changing his plans to a hammer attack and, ultimately, a hatchet attack.
“He couldn’t get the pills to crush because they weren’t very soluble,” Hicks said in summarizing the text messages. “So, he changed his mind, but he was sure he wanted his grandfather dead, and he had never been so sure of anything in his life.”
Public defender Bernard Condlin argued that Martin’s parents had neglected him for years. The teen basically raised himself, reading texts such as “Mein Kampf” and stories of serial killers as part of his homeschooling while his father was at work.
Condlin also outlined various mitigating factors, such as Martin’s immaturity, his mental instability and peer pressure. The peer pressure came not only from bullies the teen routinely faced but also from his own family, the defense attorney said, noting that Joseph Ezekiel Naulty put the idea of killing his grandfather in Martin’s head after his suicide attempt.
“So now, we just start saying stuff like, ‘You need to go on and kill your granddad because you’re only going to go to jail until you’re 19. Oh, but by the way, I’m just kidding,” Condlin told Ammons.
Raistlin Martin, who had spent much of his sentencing hearing Tuesday afternoon with his head bowed, and feet pumping nervously, rubbed his hands along his pants legs in relief.
His mother, who was sitting a couple of rows behind him in courtroom 3C of the Cumberland County Courthouse, fought back the tears. His father sat a distance away from his former wife on the same bench, lifting his head after sitting hunkered over following his earlier testimony. His hands remained poked into the pockets of a hoodie jacket.
Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons had just passed judgment, sentencing the 17-year-old Martin to life with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
On Feb. 15, Martin pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of his 63-year-old grandfather, Joseph “Joe” Emmett Naulty, with a hatchet on the 3100 block of Elgin Drive. Martin lived there, in the Village of Rockfish subdivision off Tom Starling Road, with his grandfather and his own father, Joseph Ezekiel Naulty.
The crime occurred around midnight on Aug. 8, 2016.
Martin’s mother, Persephone Martin Brown, declined to speak to the media afterward. Following the hearing, Naulty briskly departed the courtroom without a word.
According to state statute, it was Ammons’ decision to determine the appropriate sentence for Martin: Should the teen get life without parole or life with the eligibility of parole after 25 years.
Martin had no prior criminal record, according to court testimony, and has been diagnosed as possibly suffering from bipolar and conduct disorders.
“Under mitigating factors,” Ammons said during his ruling, “the mother finds abusive relationship existed between the defendant and the victim, with the victim suffering the abuse — mental, physical and emotional. I find also the defendant pled guilty, has admitted his guilt, criminal responsibility for the act.
And I find,” Ammons added, his voice rising, “that the adults in charge of his life failed him on many levels almost since the moment of his birth.”
Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West later called it “a fair decision that we certainly respect.”
“This is one of those cases where we wanted to ensure that the defendant pled guilty to first-degree murder,” he said.
Evan Miller was fourteen years old when he murdered a man. According to court documents Evan and his accomplice sixteen year old Colby Smith attacked an elderly man and proceeded to beat the man unconscious then set the house on fire. This teen killer would be sentenced to life without parole. Miller lawyers would take the case all of the way to the Supreme Court who would rule that sentencing teens to life in prison without parole was unconstitutional
Evan Miller 2023 Information
Inmate: MILLER, EVAN
AIS: 00249484
Institution: ST.CLAIR CORRECTIONAL FAC.
Evan Miller Other News
Evan Miller rose to apologize to the family of his victim “for stealing the joy from your lives” as a three-day resentencing hearing ended today.
Miller is seeking a chance at eventual release five years after his case prompted the Supreme Court to strike down automatic life without parole sentences for juveniles.
He was 14 when he killed neighbor Cole Cannon in 2003, and the statement he read this afternoon was the first acknowledgment of guilt Cannon’s family has heard.
“Your dad, Cole Cannon, didn’t deserve what happened to him,” Miller said. He added, “I’m sorry for this whole ordeal. I’m sorry for taking a huge part of your family.”
But saying that “isn’t enough,” he continued. “I want to be more. I want to do more than just an apology. To be truly sorry, you have to make amends.” He expressed hope that the “chain of pain and hatred” could be broken, “and I can make amends.
“I’m sorry once again for stealing the joy from your lives,” he said.
Miller is asking an Alabama judge to revisit his sentence, which was automatically applied after his conviction on capital murder charges in 2006. He delivered his statement after lawyers for the Equal Justice Initiative, which took his case to the Supreme Court, presented their final witnesses. He didn’t give it under oath or subject to cross-examination — and Cannon’s family called it late and weak.
“That could have been done almost 14 years ago,” Cannon’s daughter, Candy Cheatham, told reporters afterward. “You can say words and not mean them, and that’s exactly what he did.”
Cheatham said Miller’s apology “is going to look good for him to say now, when he’s looking at a chance for a judge to give him a different sentence.”
“I don’t feel he accepted responsibility … I think the apology was coached, rehearsed and insincere.”
Miller, now 28, and another teen robbed Cannon and beat him with a baseball bat before they set his trailer ablaze and left him to die in the fire. Much of the testimony this week recounted Miller’s upbringing in a family rife with physical beatings, drug abuse and neglect.
The final witness, Dr. George Davis, connected that background to the development of the adolescent brain — the neuroscience that underpinned the Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama and its predecessors.
Davis, the chief of psychiatry for New Mexico’s child welfare agency, said the part of the brain that guides rational decision-making doesn’t reach “dependable, functional capacity” until someone is in their late teens or early 20s. When complete, that frontal lobe and its prefrontal cortex inhibits impulsive, emotional reactions.
“You’ll get an inhibition of emotional overreaction,” he said. “You will get the capacity to plan ahead, to foresee consequences, to strategize about the best way to get something accomplished. The frontal lobe will also do things like take different kinds of facts or factors into account, compare them and decide between them.”
A 14-year-old “is still at the beginning of that process,” Davis said. And that development is complicated by neglect, abuse and drugs, which shadowed Miller’s entire life before the 2003 killing.
Under cross-examination, Assistant Attorney General Leigh Gwathney questioned why Miller ended up a killer while his older brother and sister didn’t. Davis said children from the same family often react differently to the same circumstances, but boys tend to respond much more aggressively than girls. And while Miller ultimately killed a man, Davis said he saw no pattern of violence from his behavior before his arrest — and saw signs of improvement in the records when he was taken away from his family, both in a 17-month stint in foster care and after the killing.
“There are times at which I looked at Evan’s record and thought that incarcerating him probably saved his life,” Davis said.
The Miller decision barred only the automatic application of life without parole for juveniles, which means Lawrence County Circuit Judge Mark Craig could pronounce the same sentence after this week’s proceedings. State prosecutors argued Miller earned that original sentence, and it should be reaffirmed.
Craig said he won’t issue a decision this week and will need some time to review the extensive documents and reports introduced as evidence. But he pledged, “I will do my best to render a just and appropriate verdict.”
Earlier, Miller’s lawyers put on a series of witnesses to demonstrate that he should get a chance at eventual release.
Miller’s onetime foster mother, Robin Brown, testified that Miller “understands what he did and that he had to be punished for it.”
“He’s hopeful and still young and has a lot of life possibly left in him, and he’s expressed a desire to do something good with it,” Brown said. When she mentioned that one day Miller might show some “forgiveness of himself,” Cannon’s relatives exchanged disbelieving looks on the opposite side of the courtroom.
Brown’s daughter, Tiffani Alldredge, testified Tuesday that Miller, his sister and brother were the only foster kids with whom her family kept in touch. Under cross-examination, Brown said she didn’t recall a fight in which Miller choked her then-preteen daughter or comments to the family’s social workers that she was ready to “give up” on all three children. She said the fight would have been documented as a matter of routine, “and of course that would have been addressed.”
A childhood friend, Patrick Hitt, described the Miller kids’ parental supervision as “nonexistent.” The family frequently was short of food, lacked power and once nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning by trying to use a charcoal grill to heat the house indoors — a story Miller’s sister, Aubrey Goldstein, had recounted earlier.
“He should have stayed in foster care,” Hitt said. “In foster care, I wasn’t going to see him every day, but I knew he was being taken care of … I think if he was in foster care, he would still be out today and doing OK.”
Hope Berryman, a social worker who saw Miller regularly in the months before the killing, said Miller had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity, conduct and substance abuse disorders. She called him intelligent, but less mature than other kids his age.
Both Miller and his mother would be visibly intoxicated in some of their meetings, and Miller had “explosive” emotional outbursts — but she was “shocked and disappointed” when she heard her client had been charged with capital murder.
“I had never seen any indication that Evan would have done what was done that night, and I felt disappointed that I had not been able to be more of a catalyst for change in his life,” Berryman said.
Prosecutors have tried to punch holes in the defense by pointing out Evan Miller had racked up a series of violations in his decade-plus in prison. They include discipline for possession of contraband items like paint, cigars and cellphones, which Assistant Attorney General Leigh Gwathney said Miller once used to send a nude video of himself to a contact outside the walls.
But David Wise, Miller’s former warden, said Evan Miller wasn’t one of his big concerns at the maximum-security St. Clair lockup, outside Birmingham.
“Although it’s not perfect, it’s my opinion that a lot of his disciplinary history is on the lines of a mischievous child in high school,” Wise said. While Evan Miller broke some rules, “which is not good,” he wasn’t involved in violent incidents — which Wise called “a way of life” among the prison’s roughly 1,200 inmates.
Evan Miller is housed in an “honor dorm” for prisoners who have exhibited good behavior and have been on a maintenance detail. Barry Black, who teaches welding to inmates at St. Clair, said Miller “always has a good attitude” and is “always respectful to me and other people.”
While inmates serving life without parole aren’t eligible to take vocational classes in Alabama prisons, Black said he knew Evan Miller because he has been on a maintenance detail at the prison, and Black has been teaching him to weld on the side.
“He came into this system at a young age. I really don’t know how he’s turned out as well as he has, to be honest with you,” Black said. He said he’s never before testified on behalf of an inmate, but “I feel like Evan deserves another chance.”
Evan Miller Resentencing
Evan Miller was just 14 when he committed the slaying that sent him to prison.
In reviewing his case, the U.S. Supreme Court banned mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles — saying judges and juries should consider the special factors of youth — a decision that eventually led to inmates across the country getting a chance at release.
But Miller will not get that chance. A judge on Tuesday handed down a second life sentence without possibility of parole.
Lawrence Circuit Judge Mark Craig ruled that Evan Miller, despite being a young teen when he committed his crime, met the legal criteria to be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. Craig said the severity of Miller’s crime outweighed the mitigating factors of Miller’s age and his abuse-filled childhood that the defense argued made him deserving of an opportunity of a chance to get out of prison some day.
Craig said a sentence of life without the possibility of parole was the “only just sentence” over the lesser punishment of life with a chance of parole after 30 years.
Miller was 14 in 2003 when he and another teen beat Cole Cannon with a baseball bat before setting fire to his trailer, a crime for which he was originally sentenced to a mandatory life sentence.
Before handing down the sentence, Craig repeated the line that Miller was attributed with saying before he delivered a final blow to Cannon: “I am God. I’ve come to take your life.” Craig said those were some of “the most chilling words I have heard.”
Craig said he was not convinced Miller could be rehabilitated and noted that Miller was the primary aggressor in the slaying.
“Had you not made the decisions that night, Mr. Cannon, in my view, would still be alive,” Craig said. “You showed cunning, not clumsy, rash thinking.”
Miller, now 32, appeared during the hearing, which was conducted virtually, by video link from an office at the Alabama prison where he is incarcerated. He did not visibly react as the sentence was read.
The Supreme Court in 2012 ruled in Miller’s case that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In the 2012 opinion in Miller’s case, justices ordered that judges and juries should consider “children’s diminished culpability, and heightened capacity for change” should make such sentences “uncommon.”
“Miller’s stepfather physically abused him; his alcoholic and drug-addicted mother neglected him; he had been in and out of foster care as a result; and he had tried to kill himself four times, the first when he should have been in kindergarten,” the court wrote in the majority opinion.
While other juvenile lifers across the country have seen their sentences reduced because of Miller’s case and a later ruling that made the decision retroactive, his own case had lingered without a decision until Tuesday.
At an earlier resentencing hearing, Miller’s lawyers cited his childhood of physical abuse and neglect and argued that at 14, his brain was not fully developed.
The Equal Justice Initiative, which has represented Miller, did not immediately comment on the decision.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the judge, “restored the punishment that is fitting for Evan Miller’s wicked actions.”
“When Evan Miller robbed and savagely beat his neighbor, setting fire to the man’s trailer and leaving his incapacitated victim to die a horrible death, he earned a well-deserved sentence of life in prison without parole,” Marshall said in a statement.
Cannon’s daughter, Candy Cheatham, had previously called Miller’s apology for the slaying “empty words.”
The Supreme Court had been moving toward greater mercy for juveniles over more than a decade, first ending the death penalty for people under 18 and then reducing the universe of people who could get life without parole sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles. But in a departure from that trend, the court last week held that judges do not have to determine that a juvenile offender is beyond hope of rehabilitation before ruling that he should spend the rest of his life in prison.
Warren Messner was fourteen when he and three other teens beat a homeless man to death in Daytona Beach Florida. According to court documents Warren Messner, Jeffrey Spurgeon, Justin Stearns, Phi Huynk and Chris Scamahorn would attack the victim just for something to do and fatally beat the man who was begging for his life. The teen killers would brag about the murder for weeks before they were finally arrested.
Warren Messner received 22.5 years in prison, Jeffrey Spurgeon would receive 35 years, Justin Stearns would receive 27 years and Chris Scamahorn would receive 35 years.
Four teenagers avoided life in prison Monday in the fatal beating of a homeless man in 2005. Circuit Judge Joseph Will handed down sentences ranging from 35 years to 22.28 years in prison in the death of Michael Roberts, who was kicked and crushed when the teenagers jumped on a log on his chest in May 2005 in Holly Hill. Jeffrey Spurgeon, 19, Justin Stearns, 18, Warren Messner, 16, and Chris Scamahorn, 15, pleaded guilty late last year to charges of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Spurgeon was sentenced to 35 years in prison, Stearns to 27 years, Scamahorn to 35 years and Messner to 22.28 years. All four will be on probation for the rest of their lives, court spokeswoman Linda Pruitt said. Prosecutors asked for life in prison, saying the teens beat the man to death as he begged for his life and bragged about the killing for weeks before they were caught. “Very, very few people are capable of committing such a heinous, brutal murder of an innocent person, and when it is done, the people who do that need to be kept away from society. Society deserves that protection,” prosecutor Ed Davis said. Defense attorneys said the teens had family and drug problems and did not understand the severity of the crime. A fifth youth, Phi Huynk, 16, still faces a charge of aggravated battery.
Two 15-year-old boys were arrested Friday for the roles investigators said they played in the beating death of a 53-year-old homeless man in Holly Hill last month.
Warren Messner, of Holly Hill, and Phi Huynh, of Daytona Beach, became the fourth and fifth teenagers charged with participating in the beating of Michael Eugene Roberts, whose alcoholism drove him to a life in the backwoods of Holly Hill.
Messner has been arrested on a charge of second-degree murder and Huynh faces a charge of aggravated battery, a felony, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. Both boys were taken into custody about 4 p.m. Friday and were taken to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Daytona Beach.
These two teenagers face lesser charges than the first three teens arrested last week. Jeffery Spurgeon, 18; Justin Stearns, 18; and Christopher Scamahorn, 14, were indicted Thursday on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. If convicted of first-degree murder, Spurgeon and Stearns could face the death penalty. Scamahorn is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age, but he will be tried as an adult.
Sheriff’s investigators have said that as many as five people may have been involved in attacking Roberts, who was living in the woods off Nova Road near Holly Hill. Roberts suffered through three separate attacks on May 25, over the course of a couple of hours, during which he was punched, kicked and beaten with a stick, deputies said. Then a large log was thrown on top of Roberts’ chest and some of the teens apparently jumped up and down on the log, according to reports.
One of the teens said they beat him up to have something to do, according to reports. Roberts’ body was left in the woods for three days until the mother of one of the defendants heard talk of the body and called authorities.
When the investigation started, Messner and Huynh admitted to being in the woods during the attacks but denied taking part, deputies said. However, investigators found new witnesses and re-interviewed other witnesses who could implicate them, sheriff’s spokesman Gary Davidson said Friday. Some of the first three defendants also said that Messner and Huynh were involved.
Messner is accused of striking Roberts with a stick and jumping up and down on the log while it sat on Roberts’ chest, while Huynh is accused of throwing rocks at Roberts and punching him in the face with his bare fists, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Investigators said that Messner and Huynh talked about the beating to friends and acquaintances, who have now become witnesses in the case and told authorities what they heard. According to an arrest report, Huynh told a witness that he had “hit the dude” a couple of times and that he was “still out here while everybody else is in there,” which is an apparent reference to the other defendants who have been in custody for two weeks.
Messner also had a conversation during which he punched a light pole and said that punch was “worse than killing the homeless dude,” according to an arrest report.
Davidson said that no additional arrests are anticipated, but he said the investigation continues.
“We’re still talking to people and getting new information so it’s possible new information may come to light,” Davidson said.
Scott Katona, who said he has lived up the street from the Messner family for about eight years, did not seem surprised by the boy’s arrest Friday.
“When we first moved here, he was into trouble a lot, but he never bothered me personally,” Katona said. “He used to run around with another kid that was always into something, but that kid moved away a few years ago. He hangs around with a different bunch now.”
Katona was surprised, however, by Warren’s age. “I would have thought he was about 18,” he said. “He’s really big-boned and a pretty big kid for 15. I thought he probably was about to move out of the house.”
According to the arrest reports, Messner is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 280 pounds. Huynh weighs 115 pounds and is 5 feet 6 inches tall.
A man who answered the phone at Messner’s house would not comment. Huynh’s family could not be reached for comment late Friday.
Roberts’ sister, Barbara Burns of Dunnellon, said she was shocked to hear of more boys arrested in her brother’s slaying.
“We had been told the investigation was still ongoing and more arrests were possible,” she said. “To find out more people are involved is a big shock.
“They’re just so young,” Burns said of the defendants. “I just don’t comprehend this.
Warren Messner is currently incarcerated at the Century Correctional Institution
Warren Messner Release Date
Warren Messner current release date is 2025
Warren Messner Other News
Warren Messner’s mother wailed and sobbed into the shoulders of friends and family Monday after a judge told her son he would not reduce the 22 years Messner must spend in prison for participating in the killing of a frail homeless man.
“It’s not [expletive] right,” Lori Messner cried after the judge had left the courtroom. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
Lori Messner had hoped her son — once described by her in court as a class clown who often was picked on by older children — would spend less time behind bars after his attorney argued the 17-year-old was a minor participant and under the domination of three other teens when they killed 53-year-old Michael Roberts.
The four beat Roberts with sticks, fists and logs on three separate occasions. Warren Messner was present for only the final attack.
Warren Messner’s attorney on Monday asked the judge to reconsider his client’s sentence during an hourlong hearing. Richard Whitson again brought up the fact that Messner was teased into participating in the May 2005 beating and was “like a mouse who was following the pied piper off the edge of the cliff” when he went along for the third attack. Whitson said Messner tried to stop the melee but was threatened by the others.
Circuit Judge Joseph G. Will said he saw no new evidence since he made his decision in April to make him change his mind.
“I was wanting to see something in the record that was different than before,” he said. “I can’t think of a reason to change the sentence.”
Lori Messner declined to comment as she stormed out of the courtroom.
The attacks in the woods of Holly Hill were so violent that Roberts suffered skull fractures and half his ribs were broken, the medical examiner determined. Any of the three blows that cracked his skull or the multiple strikes that broke his ribs could have been fatal, but Dr. Thomas Beaver said it was probably a blow to the base of Roberts’ skull that ended his life.
Warren Messner, who was 15 at the time of Roberts’ killing, received the shortest prison sentence of the four convicted killers.
Jeffery Spurgeon and Christopher Scamahorn were sentenced to 35 years in prison, and Justin Stearns received 27 years. They all were sentenced to probation for life and, once released, must keep jobs until retirement age and never use drugs or alcohol.
Messner’s attorney, Whitson, argued the “shock” of prison could be enough to make his client change his ways when asking again that Messner be sentenced under the state’s youthful-offender law, which calls for a maximum six-year penalty.
Warren Messner is incarcerated in a youth camp at Indian River Correctional Institution, where he must spend most of his day locked alone in a 6-by-9-foot cell. He is allowed out for three meals a day and a shower but does not have access to a television or books, Messner told the judge.
He can’t participate in any schooling and spends most of his days sleeping, he testified.
Assistant State Attorney Ed Davis said Warren Messner was a willing and active participant who got a break by being able to plead to charges of second-degree murder. He told the judge he thought a jury would have convicted him of first-degree murder and sent him to prison for life.
“He needs to take responsibility for what he did,” Davis said.
The victim’s sister said she was pleased by the judge’s decision. Barbara Burns, who did not attend the hearing because her husband is sick, said she felt Messner already got a break because he received the shortest prison sentence.
“I think he deserves it,” she said of the prison term that will keep Warren Messner is prison until he is in his late 30s. “These are kids that do not need to be on the streets living amongst us.”
Jquan McInnis was seventeen years old when he opened fire on a vehicle killing a man and a infant. According to court documents Jquan McInnis believed that the victim had stolen something from him so he would run up to the vehicle and fire five times striking and killing the man inside. This teen killer would then fire into the back seat killing a seven month old infant. At court Jquan McInnis would be sentenced to two life sentences and must serve thirty years on each count meaning he must serve sixty years before he will be eligible for parole.
Jquan McInnis 2023 Information
MNDOC Offender ID:235357
Name:Jquan Leearthur Mcinnis
Birth Date:03/17/1999
Current Status:Incarcerated as of 02/21/2019.
Currently at MCF Oak Park Heights.
Sentence Date:02/19/2019
Anticipated Release Date:Life –
Jquan McInnis Other News
A then-teenage gunman will be an old man when, or if, he is ever released from prison after receiving a 60-year sentence in the deaths of a man and an infant.
Jquan McInnis, now 20, was sentenced Thursday in Hennepin County District Court for the fatal 2016 murders of Gustav Christianson II and 7-month-old Jayden Redden. Judge Jeannice Reding called McInnis’ actions on that day “brazen and heartless.” She sentenced McInnis to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years on each first degree murder count and ordered them served consecutively, meaning the convicted gunman will be 78 years old before he can be considered for release.
McInnis was given credit for three years he’s served in jail since the shootings took place.
During the trial prosecutors alleged that the shootings were carried out because McInnis believed Christianson had stolen from him. Investigators say the teen obtained a gun and when he passed a car parked near 26th Street East and 11th Avenue South with Christianson inside, McIniss told his companion to drive and park a block away. Prosecutors say McInnis then put his hood up to hide his identity, ran through several yards and fired five times, killing Christianson. As he was leaving, McInnis fired one more shot through the car’s back window, striking the infant in his car seat, although missing the baby’s father, the driver of the car.
During a presentence hearing evidence was presented that McInnis was likely exposed to drugs and alcohol in the womb, which is detrimental to development of the fetus. He was taken from his mother as an infant and placed with her mother and her husband where he suffered “chronic maltreatment,” including a failure of the grandparents to follow up on school and mental health resources that could have helped McInnis.
Instead, he spent a lot of his time on the street, unsupervised, and “spent time with mostly older gang members and learned how to survive on the streets, including using violence as a way of conflict resolution,” Judge Reding said. In deciding not to sentence him to life in prison without parole, the judge noted that both experts who examined McInnis said he is capable of being rehabilitated in prison.
KARE 11 reported that just months before the fatal shootings McInnis had been charged in the armed robbery and assault of a woman, but as a juvenile was given no prison time and released on three years probation.
A man who was 17 years old when he was charged in the shooting deaths of a man and a baby in Minneapolis in 2016 has been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in prison.
Jquan McInnis had been found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in 2018, for a crime that happened in October 2016. He was indicted by a grand jury.
The victims were 20-year-old Gustav Christianson II and seven-month old Jayden Redden. Minneapolis Police said that McInnis was riding in a car with then 25-year-old Rashad Austin two years ago when McInnis saw Christianson in a car nearby. He then got out of the car and went up to the other vehicle, firing shots into it before running away.
Redden’s father was also in the vehicle, and ran with the baby toward Children’s Hospital before being met by paramedics, who treated Redden in an ambulance before transporting him to the hospital. He died a short time thereafter.
The two life sentences carry the possibility of parole after 30 years. However, as it was ruled they were to be served consecutively, the earliest McInnis will be eligible for parole will be after he serves a minimum 60 years in prison, when he is about 80 years old.
He has been given credit for the more than three years he has already served.
Jquan McInnis Gets 2 Life Sentences In 2016 Shooting Deaths Of Man, Baby
Jquan McInnis Videos
Frequently Asked Questions
Jquan McInnis Now
Jquan McInnis is currently incarcerated at MCF Oak Park Heights
Alec McKinney (aka Maya McKinney) a transgender teen from Colorado would plead guilty to charges relating to a school shooting. According to court documents Alex McKinney and Devon Erickson would enter the STEM School Highlands Ranch opening fire which would end with one student dead and eight other injuries. Alex McKinney would eventually plead guilty to avoid a life sentence. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison anyway
DOC Number:189320 Est. Parole Eligibility Date: Next Parole Hearing Date:This offender is scheduled on the Parole Board agenda for the month and year above. Please contact the facility case manager for the exact date. Est. Mandatory Release Date: Est. Sentence Discharge Date:12/31/9998 Current Facility Assignment:YOUTHFUL OFFENDER SYSTEM-TRANSFER
Alex McKinney More News
A transgender teenager accused of opening fire with a friend in a Denver-area charter school in May to exact revenge on classmates who bullied him pleaded guilty on Friday to murder and attempted murder charges, prosecutors said.
Alec McKinney, 16, who has been held without bond since the May 7 rampage that left one student dead and eight others wounded, pleaded guilty to 17 criminal counts, including conspiracy and weapons charges, said Douglas County District Attorney George Brauchler.
Alec McKinney is accused along with Devon Erickson, 19, of carrying out the shooting at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
An 18-year-old student, Kendrick Castillo, was fatally shot when he charged one of the shooters, police said.
The Colorado Public Defender’s Office, which represents McKinney said it does not comment on its cases outside court.
Erickson pleaded not guilty last month to 44 felony counts and is set to go on trial in May.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the pair armed themselves with three handguns and a 22-caliber rifle stolen from a gun safe owned by Erickson’s parents.
Both teens consumed cocaine before storming the school, the affidavit said.
Alec McKinney was born female and told police he was in a “pre-op transitioning phase,” and planned the shooting to get back at classmates who had bullied him for being transgender, according to court documents.
McKinney said he had enlisted Erickson to help him carry out the plot, police said.
In December, McKinney’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued to have his case transferred to juvenile court, arguing that he had a troubled childhood, including witnessing domestic violence by his father against his mother.
In denying that motion, Judge Philip Holmes said in a written order that while Alec McKinney “has experienced serious trauma in his life,” the alleged crimes were so serious that he should be tried as an adult.
McKinney, who is scheduled to be sentenced on May 18, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 40 years of his term because he was a juvenile when the crimes were committed.
Erickson, who was an adult when the crimes were committed, faces life without the possibility of parole if he is convicted of murder, or the death penalty if prosecutors decide to seek capital punishment.
The juvenile suspect in last year’s STEM school shooting in Highlands Ranch pleaded guilty in the case on Friday.
Alec McKinney had faced dozens of charges, including first-degree murder for the killing of Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old student who died in the shooting. Eight other students were wounded in the May 7 attack at STEM School Highlands Ranch.
In Douglas County court on Friday, McKinney pleaded guilty to more than a dozen felonies, including the first-degree murder charge, and one misdemeanor, according to a plea deal detailed in court. The remaining charges in the case would be dismissed under the deal.
The other charges included conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after deliberation, attempted murder after deliberation, attempted murder extreme indifference, conspiracy to commit arson, burglary and criminal mischief and possession of a weapon on school grounds. McKinney also pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree assault for the two students who were mistakenly shot by a security guard in the response to the attack.
McKinney’s sentencing is scheduled for May 18. The mandatory minimum sentence for McKinney, 16, is life with the possibility for parole after 40 years, minus earned time. He faces up to a total of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years, plus 407 1/2 years, according to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s office. However, under a recent state law, McKinney, as a juvenile offender, could become eligible for parole under a special program after 28 years in prison, District Attorney George Brauchler said.
Because McKinney is a juvenile, he was not eligible for life without parole or the death penalty.
John Castillo, Kendrick Castillo’s father, said afterward Friday that the guilty plea “is what we were hoping for” but “no matter what happens in the courtroom, the results are the still the same.”
Name:ERICKSON, DEVON M Age:21 Ethnicity:OTHER Gender:MALE Hair Color:BROWN Eye Color: BROWN Height:5′ 11″ Weight:145
DOC Number:192238 Est. Parole Eligibility Date:09/17/2081 Next Parole Hearing Date:This offender is scheduled on the Parole Board agenda for the month and year above. Please contact the facility case manager for the exact date. Est. Mandatory Release Date:01/25/9999 Est. Sentence Discharge Date: Current Facility Assignment:CENTENNIAL CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
Frequently Asked Questions
Alec McKinney Release Date
Alec McKinney is serving life without parole
Devon Erickson Release Date
Devon Erickson first chance at parole is in 2081
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