Flint Teen gets Life Sentence
Deonte Isaac Gray, a 19-year-old from Flint was recently sentenced to life in prison for a triple murder. What makes this situation slightly different from the many other murders processed by the Flint Court on a regular basis, is that one of the victims in this case was 9-year-old Trashawn Macklin. Sadly, the young boy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and lost his life for being a witness to the events on that fateful evening.
According to the preliminary exam testimony of Flint Police Sgt. Cynthia Herfert, Gray and 23-year-old Akeem Easterling had become involved in an argument that escalated into a shoving match, and ended when Gray shot Easterling with the gun he had brought with him to the Park West Apartment complex.
He then apparently went back to the apartment’s rear bedroom in order to tell 25-year-old James Allen Jr. what had happened. But as he entered the room he saw Allen going for his own gun which he kept in his nightstand, and so he shot him as well. Gray then attempted to leave the apartment before Trashawn saw him. But upon realizing that the youngster had in fact witnessed what had happened, he shot the boy, took his backpack, and left the apartment.
Police records show that Gray had been arrested in November of 2010 during a home invasion where a 94-year-old woman lived and was asleep at the time. He pled guilty to second-degree home invasion and felonious assault and was housed at a group home that contracted with DHS. Records show that he assaulted another minor while at the facility, and then fled. The murders took place shortly thereafter.
Gray’s attorney, Major White, had formerly put forward the argument that the murders had not been planned and therefore did not meet the criteria for premeditated murder. For this reason, he believes that first degree murder is too harsh a sentence – a theory which he revisited at the sentencing. But Judge Archie Hayman apparently disagreed, and sentenced Gray to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
According to White, Deonte Gray intends to appeal the conviction.