Nineteen-year-old gets life sentence for fatal shooting
A Franklin County judge commended a woman Wednesday for testifying last week against a man accused of being involved in her boyfriend’s shooting death.
If Shabie Flowers hadn’t told a jury about watching Tyrik McDonald Glasco walk from a Near East Side alley where Daegio Heron had just been shot on Oct. 2, and about being threatened by Glasco the next day, prosecutors might not have had a case, Common Pleas Judge Charles Schneider said.
“What you did ... showed a great deal of courage,” Schneider told Flowers.
Schneider imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 18 years for Glasco, who was convicted Friday of murder with a gun specification. Glasco also was convicted of intimidating a witness, for which the judge gave him two years to run concurrently with the rest of the sentence.
Flowers made a statement before Glasco was sentenced, encouraging the judge to impose the “stiffest penalty possible ... so he’s not back out on the streets. He intimidated me and I don’t want him back out there looking for me or doing anything else.”
Glasco, 19, declined to make a statement in court, but defense attorney Frederick Benton said his client remains “adamant that he was not involved in this crime ... This young man was judged more based upon who he associated with ... as opposed to any actual criminal culpability.”
Glasco was not the gunman and there was no evidence that he had a gun during the incident, which occurred in an alley between Harvard Avenue and Greenway near Heron’s Taylor Road home. The jury found, however, that Glasco had assisted in the crime.
Assistant Prosecutors Daniel Hogan and Anthony Pierson relied on video from surveillance cameras to trace the movements of Glasco and others accused in the crime during a nearly two-hour period leading up to the shooting. They also presented testimony from a 17-year-old boy who was with the group and a homeless man who witnessed the shooting.
Benton called the execution-style shooting, for which there was no clear motive, “a tragic and unnecessary event. But it’s also tragic that you have a young man who stands before this court convicted of a crime that he did not commit.”
A murder warrant has been issued for Tivon D. Green, 21, who was identified as the shooter in the case. Green remains at large. Dajuan A. Crowley, 19, pleaded guilty last month to involuntary manslaughter in the case.
Crowley was sentenced Wednesday in a separate court hearing. He was given 14 years in prison, which had been recommended by prosecuting and defense attorneys as part of his plea agreement. Two witnesses testified that he, like Green, was carrying a gun.
Flowers also spoke at Crowley’s hearing, saying she appreciated that Crowley “took responsibility for that 14 years, but I want him to know that’s not enough.”
Prosecutors had offered Glasco a plea deal, which would have required him to testify against Green. He rejected the offer, which included a recommendation for an eight-year sentence.