Windsor man gets 63 years in prison for murder
Published 12:53 pm Thursday, August 4, 2011
SUFFOLK—A Windsor man was sentenced to 63 years in prison Wednesday for murdering an 18-year-old from Suffolk.
A Suffolk Circuit Court jury in May found Dontaz Latray Wilkerson, 20, guilty of murdering TyQuan Lewis, a rising Lakeland High School senior and standout athlete. Wilkerson fired 15 rounds at Lewis and three other teens on Walnut Street on Aug. 1, 2010.
Wilkerson
Lewis was killed after a party on Manning Road, according to testimony during the trial. After he broke up a fight between Wilkerson and another man, Lewis and some friends went to McDonald’s and other places in downtown Suffolk. Eventually, there was some communication that led Lewis and Wilkerson to the same place on Walnut Street, near Booker T. Washington Elementary School, supposedly to fight.
When Lewis and three others got out of the car, Wilkerson began shooting from across the street. A bullet hit Lewis in the jaw and lodged in the back of his neck, causing fatal injuries.
No one else was hurt.
The jury recommended a sentence of 53 years. The judge imposed that time, plus 10 more years for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, which had not been included in the trial, and for violating his probation.
Wilkerson also was ordered to pay $6,400 in restitution for Lewis’ funeral expenses.
A co-defendant in the case, Randy Sherrod Copeland Jr., is set for trial Dec. 7-9.
