Man gets 45 years for parking lot killing

A 29-year-old Little Rock drug dealer and bank fraudster who fatally shot another man in front of a popular eatery was sentenced to 45 years in prison Thursday after a Pulaski County jury rejected capital-murder charges that would have sent Brelyn Deandre London away for life.

Jurors deliberated about three hours after a three-day trial to find London guilty of reckless manslaughter for the July 2020 shooting in the parking lot of 6800 Colonel Glenn Road that killed 29-year-old Vence Edward Lee Jr.

Struck by bullets in the chin, chest and hip, Lee, a Little Rock father of one, died about two weeks later, with London arrested a week after that. Both men, who were strangers, had been at the site to buy food from the Kool’s BBQ truck parked there.

London was charged with capital murder due the killing being an exceptionally cold-blooded shooting that put multiple people in danger, prosecutors Rafael Gallaher, Whitney Ohlhausen and Kate Wyly told jurors.

“He valued his own pride and a parking spot over a human life,” Ohlhausen said.

The prosecutors told jurors that London, sitting in the driver’s seat of his BMW, opened fire on Lee in the crowded parking lot, because Lee had asked London to move the BMW, which was blocking Lee’s car from leaving. They said he gunned down Lee and then left without ever getting out of his car.

“If the defendant had made the choice to drive away, we wouldn’t be here,” Ohlhausen said in closing statements. “He wants you to approve the killing of an innocent man.”

They said Lee’s wounds show that he was turning away from the gunfire when he was struck while there’s no evidence Lee was ever armed, with all of the ballistic evidence indicating that the only weapon fired at the scene was the .40-caliber pistol London said he had with him.

London, represented by defense attorney Bill James, told jurors a vastly different story, saying that he only shot in self-defense after being confronted by an armed and angry Lee due to a misunderstanding about the parking. James urged jurors to clear his client of wrongdoing, saying London had only been defending himself.

Lee’s sister was the only prosecution eyewitness to the shooting, and the defense focused on how she and her mother behaved at the beginning of the police probe into the shooting. James said the way mother and daughter acted should go to support the defense contention that Lee was armed when London shot him.

James said that 29-year-old Edwarzia “Sharne” Lee, who had driven the siblings to the food truck and saw her brother shot, immediately took her brother to the hospital and then, for all intents and purposes, disappeared for a time, taking the car — and whatever evidence it carried — with her. Investigators would not get to talk to her or examine the car — which was struck three times by bullets — until Vence Lee had died, James said in closing statements.

Further, their mother, 50-year-old Sonia Mitchell, blocked police efforts to question Sharne Lee that night because Mitchell was mad that police would not let her see her wounded son when she wanted to, James told jurors.

Further, Sharne Lee’s statement that she saw her brother get shot in the back “could not have physically happened,” James said

“The way they acted during and after … makes more sense with [Vence Lee] having a gun than not having a gun,” the defense attorney said.

Sharne Lee, who spent about an hour testifying, told jurors that the siblings had gone to Kool’s to get food for themselves and their mother. Lee, who had been driving, said London, a childhood acquaintance she hadn’t seen in years, profanely rejected her request to move his car so the pair could leave.

She said her brother got out of their vehicle, walked up to London who was facing them and the men had words, although she said she couldn’t hear what was said. She told jurors that her brother was walking back from the car when the shooting started.

London told jurors he’d stopped his car when a friend greeted him in the crowded parking lot. He said Lee then walked up and “demanded” he move his car.

Complaining about Lee’s brusque demeanor, London told jurors he agreed to move his car and was glad to do it because he wanted Lee’s parking spot, but Lee apparently did not understand, which led to an argument between them.

“I told him it was cool, ‘I want your spot anyway. I guess he didn’t hear me,” London said. “He started mouthing and I was mouthing off. I didn’t make any threats.”

Lee seemed to walk away, then suddenly turned around with a pistol leveled at him, London said. He said he grabbed his gun and started shooting, showing jurors how he had reached across his body with his right hand, then brought the weapon up toward the gun-pointing Lee by his car window.

“I just grabbed my gun and started shooting,” London said. “It was like a split-second. All I remember was people running … and he had a gun pointed at me. I’m scared for my life.”

He testified he didn’t know he’d hit anyone until police started looking for him when Lee died. He said he’d given the gun away by then.

London’s chief witness was childhood friend Roderick Steven McClinton, 32, of Little Rock, who had been in the car with London.

McClinton said they stopped at the Kool’s truck after a morning spent searching for real estate properties they could invest in with their covid-19 relief funds. Acknowledging he was on parole for a July 2016 robbery conviction, McClinton said he wasn’t paying much attention when London stopped the car until he heard raised voices, looked up and saw a man pointing a gun at them.

McClinton told jurors he “eased out” of the car with his hands raised before realizing the stranger was not interested in him. McClinton said he urged the armed man to “chill, it’s only a parking spot” but then heard gunshots.

Without seeing what had happened, McClinton said, he started running. He said he didn’t leave the parking lot because he looked back and saw London motioning him to return so he went back, got in the car and they left.

In exchange for London accepting the 45-year sentence, the maximum on the manslaughter count for a repeat offender using a gun, prosecutors agreed to a concurrent 40-year term to resolve London’s other charge from the slaying, a felon in possession of a firearm count. Further the sides agreed that his state prison term will run concurrently with a federal covid-fraud sentence he’s serving

To testify, London had to acknowledge to the jury his criminal history, which includes drug-dealing and fleeing, convictions for which he was on probation for when he shot Lee. London also told jurors he’s now serving a fiveyear federal prison sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud as part of a covid fraud scheme.

According to federal authorities, London was part of a group that used unemployment debit cards, which were designed to distribute pandemic unemployment assistance made available by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, to withdraw funds that they were not entitled to. Court records show he’s further been ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution as the first of 21 defendants charged.