Published: 2013 December 08 07:42:42 (9483 Views)

A shop owner from Wilmington, US, who shot to death a 15-year-old and wounded an 11-year-old who had broken into his business, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.

While the prosecutor conceded that Lee A. Turner had a viable claim of self-defence, she charged Turner acted recklessly when he fatally shot 15-year-old Naj'm Hickmond and wounded another boy on June 17, 2012, at Turner's store at 1510 W. Fourth Street.

Deputy Attorney General Ipek Medford told the court that not only did the 29-year-old Turner not call police after the incident, he stepped over Hickmond's bleeding body to flee the scene and initially lied to officers when he was questioned about the shooting.

Turner, who had a criminal record, was prohibited from having a firearm at the time.

Under the terms of Turner's plea deal, prosecutors asked for seven years in prison but Superior Court Judge William C. Carpenter Jr. gave Turner three years above the state's recommendation.

Carpenter said he normally would have given Turner an even longer sentence but said the circumstances of the case and Turner's background called for some leniency.



Turner, who admitted to manslaughter and a weapons charge in September, faced up to 50 years behind bars.

"Mr. Turner, this is a hard case," Carpenter said from the bench. "You are someone we would hold up as an example of someone who did it all wrong and turned it all around and did it the right way," Carpenter said. "And in a split second you turned it all back."

Carpenter told Turner he can understand the frustration at being burglarised and then being surprised by those same burglars in his shop, "but it still doesn't justify what you did."

According to police and prosecutors, Turner co-owned two clothing stores, called Fly 365, with one in Wilmington and one in Dover.

The Wilmington location, which had been closed for several weeks, had been burglarised repeatedly including on the morning of June 17, 2012.

Turner was in the ransacked store, cleaning up from the earlier burglary when a group of people that defence attorney Michael Heyden said burglarised the store earlier returned to take more, coming in through the back entrance.



Source - DO

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