Billy Sheppard was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for two murders that took place during the same morning. According to court documents Billy Sheppard would shoot and kill Patrick Stafford and would later shoot and kill sixteen year old Monquell Wimberly. Billy Sheppard would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Billy Sheppard 2021 Information
Two Jacksonville families forever joined by a wave of violence on a Sunday morning in July 2008 had waited more than three years to finally hear one word that finally came Thursday: Guilty.
After five and a half hours of deliberating, a jury found Billy Jim Sheppard, 25, guilty in two fatal shootings and stealing a car in a four-hour stretch.
He now faces the possibility of the death penalty, convicted of two counts of first-degree murder.
“This has been a very long haul for the family members in this case,” said Assistant State Attorney Mark Caliel.
Left in Sheppard and his accused co-defendant’s path was 39-year-old Patrick Stafford and 16-year-old Monquell Deshaun Wimberly, gunned down just blocks from each other in a West Jacksonville neighborhood.
Stafford was found slain in a relative’s front yard in the 1600 block of Academy Street soon after gunfire was heard shortly after 6 a.m. on July 20, 2008.
Just after 10 a.m., Wimberly was killed as he rode his bike on the 100 block of Kings Road, on his way to meet his family to go to church, they said.
Tying much of the state’s case and the accused together was a gray Ford Crown Victoria stolen at a convenience store at the corner of Beaver and Tyler streets, where its owner had visited during the four hours between the shootings.
A witness testified that he saw Sheppard and co-defendant Rashard Antwan Evans, 23, get in the car and speed away.
Video from the store also showed both Sheppard and Evans inside the store minutes before the vehicle was jacked.
Fingerprints found in the car were later matched to Evans.
Accounts from three witnesses later placed a car matching the Crown Victoria’s description at the scene of the Wimberly shooting.
One witness, a security guard at an apartment complex outside of which Wimberly was shot, identified Sheppard as the man whose face she saw pass within feet of her, hanging out of the passenger window of the stolen car, looking back at the dying teen.
“This was a very difficult case in the sense that it had to be pieced together by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office,” Caliel said.
The prosecution also called an inmate who shared a jail cell with Sheppard for three months.
Michael Roberts, 41, gave jurors details of the three crimes, which he said Sheppard shared with him. He said the defendant also tried to enlist him to kill the security guard witness to prevent her from testifying.
“He [Sheppard] was asking me ‘I need you to do me a favor. I need you to take care of that lady,’ ” Roberts said.
He testified that Sheppard offered him nearly $10,000 to eliminate the witness with money from the co-defendants’ income tax return checks, for which Roberts said he helped them fill out the returns, as he did for several inmates.
Defense attorney Chuck Fletcher called Roberts a liar who, as a career criminal, likely obtained those details from Sheppard’s case paperwork
In a twist, 11 months after Roberts was released from jail in December 2009, 20 Duval inmates were charged with filing faulty tax returns.
A nine-time felon, Roberts faces up to 30 years in prison as a habitual offender on burglary and grand theft charges in Nassau County.
Sheppard will return to court this month when the jury makes its recommendation to Circuit Judge Brad Stetson for a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.
https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20120113/NEWS/801259400
