Killing of 7-year-old gets man life without parole
The judge called it the worst murder he’s encountered in his more than 12 years on the bench.
Marctarius Grace, trying to take revenge against a rival gang member, indiscriminately fired as many as a dozen shots into a car parked outside a Near East Side convenience store on March 4, 2016.
One of the shots struck a 7-year-old boy in the head as he sat in the back seat, killing him in front of his two younger siblings. Another bullet grazed the leg of his 5-year-old brother, and a shard of flying glass penetrated the arm of his 4-year-old sister. The intended target of the shooting, a 19-year-old man, was struck in the buttocks.
A Franklin County jury convicted Grace in July of aggravated murder, three counts of attempted murder, three counts of felonious assault, participation in a criminal gang and gun and gang specifications.
On Monday, Judge Michael J. Holbrook sentenced Grace to the maximum penalty of life in prison without a chance of parole for the death of De’Ontae Fisher. The boy was less than one month shy of his 8th birthday when he was killed outside the Express Market, 900 E. 5th Ave.
The judge added 65 years to the sentence for the other crimes.
“Quite frankly, putting 12 rounds into a car at less than 10 feet, especially a .40 caliber, aiming where kids are at, I have no sympathy (for you) at all,” Holbrook told Grace.
Defense attorney Karen Phipps said she advised Grace, 19, not to make a statement during the sentencing because he plans to appeal the conviction.
Assistant Prosecutor Elizabeth Geraghty said Grace deserved the maximum penalty for “a flat-out revenge shooting, gang-related. That’s all it was. He killed a 7-year-old. He did not care that he killed a 7-year-old.”
After the hearing, the child’s mother would receive his property, Geraghty said, including a pair of Michael Jordan-brand athletic shoes.
“They’re the smallest pair of Michael Jordans I’ve ever seen,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
All of the victims were in a car driven to the store by the children’s mother, Judith Huntley. She and another adult passenger were inside the store when the shots were fired at the car.
Geraghty and Assistant Prosecutor Jason Manning presented evidence at trial to establish that Grace got out of a Nissan Murano that had been circling the store and fired into Huntley’s Chevrolet Impala as part of a dispute with a rival gang. Testimony indicated that Grace was a member of the Trevitt & Atcheson Crips and was pursuing two adults who were members of the MiloGrogan Bloods.
The maternal grandmother of the children, Tammie Maxwell, spoke for the family at the sentencing, giving the precise number of days, hours and minutes that she and other relatives have endured without De’Ontae.
She tearfully begged the judge to impose the harshest sentence possible on Grace.
“I will never forgive him for killing my grandson,” she said. “I’m not going to stand up here and say I have to forgive, because I can’t. ... He deserves no mercy.”