Windsor Locks man gets 50 years for 2019 fatal shooting

Ex-girlfriend’s new partner was shot more than 40 times

A Windsor Locks man was sentenced to 50 years in prison Wednesday for fatally shooting a Hartford man more than 40 times in Windsor Locks in 2019, according to state authorities.

Antwon Barnes, 41, of Windsor Locks, was sentenced by Judge Michael J. Gustafson on Wednesday after a Superior Court jury found Barnes guilty of first-degree manslaughter, first-degree attempt to commit assault and third-degree larceny on Dec. 9, 2022.

Barnes fatally shot Leroy Jefferson more than 40 times in the hallway of a Windsor Locks apartment building on Oct. 22, 2019, court records said. He then turned his legally owned handgun on Jefferson’s girlfriend whom Barnes used to date. The gun did not fire, according to court records. He then fled the scene in a stolen vehicle.

A short time later, Windsor Locks police officer Earl Baidy was interviewing Jefferson’s girlfriend when Barnes called her on her cellphone, court records said. She handed the phone to Baidy, who persuaded Barnes to surrender. Barnes then drove the stolen car to Hartford and turned himself in, according to court records.

The girlfriend told police she and Jefferson met Barnes in a stairwell inside the apartment building as they were leaving, court records said. Jefferson walked past her and Barnes said she followed. When she looked back, she saw a look on Barnes’ face she’d never seen before. “What, Antwon, what,” she told police she asked Barnes. She told police he replied with an expletive, pulled out a gun and began shooting Jefferson, according to court records.

The girlfriend told police she previously dated Barnes for about nine years and had been dating Jefferson for about three months when the shooting took place, court records said.

“I would like to acknowledge the victim’s father who endured extended suffering as a result of this horrific crime,” State’s Attorney Sharmese L. Walcott said in a release on Wednesday. “This office is committed to prosecuting gun violence that occurs in the city and the suburbs. I hope the family of the deceased victim and the surviving victim are one step closer to finding peace.”