Sentences have been handed down for the three other Bossier City defendants accused in a 2017 DeBerry shooting that killed two people and injured a third.
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Three sentenced in 2017 double homicide that killed Waskom girl
Thompson, Smith, Williamson.
Sentences have been handed down for the three other Bossier City defendants accused in a 2017 DeBerry shooting that killed two people and injured a third.
Cordarius Thompson, 22, and Cartrell Williamson, 26, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Wednesday morning in the 123rd District Court in Panola County.
Mose Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon last week.
Marlon Kelly
The three, along with
Marlon Kelly, were charged in connection with the shooting deaths of
Shayla Carson, 18, of Waskom and
Dalton Berry, 21, of Panola, as well as the nonfatal shooting of a third man, at a home in the DeBerry and Bethany area in July 2017. Court testimony and statements from prosecutors have detailed the shooting as a result of a drug deal gone wrong.
Shayla Carson, 18, of Waskom
Dalton Berry, 21, of Panola
All four men involved in the case struck plea deals with prosecutors.
Kelly, who prosecutors identified as the shooter in the case, had pleaded guilty in November and had been sentenced to 20 years for each of two murder counts and 10 years for the aggravated assault count. Smith pleaded guilty last week and was sentenced to seven years for each of two murder counts and five years for the aggravated assault count.
Thompson’s sentence was four years for the aggravated assault case and six years for each of the two murder counts. Williamson received four years for the aggravated assault case and five years for each of the two murder counts.
All sentences for each of the men in the cases are to be served concurrently, meaning at the same time. All four men received credit for time served since their arrests.
Defendants describe shooting
Williamson, on the stand, testified Wednesday that Marlon Kelly asked to be driven to a DeBerry address so he could buy marijuana. Williamson said they later picked up Cordarius Thompson and Mose Smith on the way.
Williamson said Wednesday that, until they were on the road to DeBerry, he did not know that Kelly had no money and was planning a “smash and run” robbery or that Thompson and Smith were carrying guns in addition to Kelly.
While entering their guilty pleas, Thompson and Williamson were asked to specify the guns each man had used; District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson said after the hearing this was to ensure testimony could be linked to the evidence gained in the investigation.
Both Thompson and Williamson described how Kelly got out of the car and went out of view between two trailers with a man once they arrived at the DeBerry address. Thompson described hearing gunshots and getting out of the car to see what was going on — he testified he then saw a girl on the ground and a door swinging shut as someone went inside — before he also heard gunshots coming from the direction of their car.
Thompson identified Kelly as the first shooter and said he thought Smith was responsible for the other gunshots, although he said he didn’t see what was happening at the car because at that point he was behind the trailer.
When asked, Thompson said he was not sure how many shots Kelly fired.
“I’m not exactly sure, but he emptied the whole gun,” Thompson said.
Williamson remained in the car the entire time and testified he did not hear the first round of shots. Williamson said Thompson and Smith got out of the car and then he later heard other gunshots as someone was running into the woods and then a gunshot after Thompson went around the trailer.
Williamson said Kelly came back to the car, scared and with a backpack full of marijuana and a gun in his hand. Kelly threw up in the car after getting back and sitting down in the front passenger seat of the car, Thompson and Williamson testified.
“I believe I killed someone” is what Williamson said Kelly remarked when he got inside the car. On the way back to Shreveport, Williamson told the court that the men discussed keeping the crime to themselves.
“Everything that happened today got to stay to ourselves” and “If one go down, we all go down,” Williamson recalled.
Thompson testified that he only got an ounce of marijuana after they got back to Shreveport and divvied up the drugs. Williamson testified that each of the four received an equal amount of the pound of marijuana that Kelly took from the robbery.
Both Thompson and Williamson testified about an assault rifle that was taken from the DeBerry address; Special Prosecutor Rick Berry said they believe the gun was a trophy taken from the scene.
“I do apologize for what happened,” Thompson told family members on Wednesday. Williamson, too, apologized, saying he wished he could make it so that the shooting never happened.
Victims’ families say grief, pain never goes away
During the victim impact statement portion of both hearings Wednesday, members of both Shayla’s and Dalton’s families told the defendants that the shootings had taken away two young people who were loved by their friends and family. The grief and pain has not gone away, they said.
While family members acknowledged that Thompson and Williamson were not the main shooters in the case, they said the fact that they took part in the robbery and did not try to stop it meant they were still responsible for murder.
Shayla was described as a beautiful girl with an infectious smile who had overcome many hardships in life and who was just beginning to enjoy the good things that had come her way. Dalton was described as someone who made friends easily and who had the whole world ahead of him until his life was senselessly cut down.
“You had a choice to not get in that car with your friends to go rob someone, or as you say, to go buy drugs,” Shayla’s sister Stephanie Gafford said. “You had the choice to do the right thing and go to the police, but you didn’t, and for that you will have to live with the consequences. Is there any reasonable explanation as to why my sister lost her life that night? What about Dalton? I can’t imagine any amount of drugs or money being worth both of these people’s lives. The truth is that you participated in an act that lead to their deaths. You got in a vehicle and came across state lines knowing that something bad was about to happen.”
Shayla’s faith always guided her, and on Wednesday her family said the best way to honor Shayla’s life would be to follow in that faith and focus on forgiveness, as hard as it may be — and to hope that Thompson and Williamson would turn their lives around once they were out of prison.
Guilty pleas end 4-year prosecution
District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson called the case “very frustrating.”
“I wished we could have gotten more. I think we got as much (prison) time as we could have gotten,” he said.
Both Davidson and Special Prosecutor Rick Berry pointed to a number of issues with the case: Eyewitnesses could only provide vague descriptions of the suspects, not identification; they had no fingerprints; the guns used in the crime have not been found.
“If Cartrell’s phone had not been used, it probably would still be unsolved,” Berry said. “The phone, they were able to trace it back to Cartrell, and Cartrell was very cooperative from the beginning.”
Prosecutors also waited about three years for DNA evidence to come back and were dealing with issues caused by the COVID pandemic, delays that meant the case dragged on for longer than expected.
“When I first got involved, I thought this thing would come together pretty readily with my experience and Mr. Davidson’s experience,” Berry said. “Then when it didn’t, at one point frankly I was concerned that we were not going to be able to convict anybody other than Cartrell and to a certain extent Cordarius, who at least admitted their involvement and had been somewhat cooperative from the word go, I would say. The others? We had no statements from Kelly, no statement from Mose Smith.”
Berry called the circumstances around the shootings unfortunate.
“If it wasn’t for the marijuana sales and the circumstances that were going on here, none of these guys would have encountered each other, and if it wasn’t for that situation, because this was a drug deal and that’s what this whole thing was about, if it wasn’t for any of that, you’d have two people who were still alive and another person that wouldn’t have been injured the way it was,” he said. “The countless hours and work and expense of this thing has been over marijuana and stupidity.”
