DEATH PENALTY CASE ENDS IN 42-YEAR PRISON PLEA DEAL

Louis Crawford gets 42-year sentence for killing ex-girlfriend.

A 42-year prison plea deal Monday ended what would have been a death penalty trial for a man who stabbed his estranged girlfriend to death and left the woman’s body for her 9-year-old daughter to find after she returned from playing outside their West Palm Beach apartment.

Louis Crawford, 49, accepted the plea deal for 42 years and six months behind bars on what was supposed to be the first day of jury selection in his trial, where prosecutors would have asked jurors to give him the death penalty if they convicted him as charged of first-degree murder.

Instead, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder as part of an agreement between Assistant State Attorney Aleathea McRoberts and his attorneys, Edward Reagan and Robert Gershman. Circuit Judge John Kastrenakes accepted Crawford’s plea and also granted a defense request to send him to the Blackwater River Correctional Institution in Florida’s panhandle.

The deal comes more than five years after the death of Shandreka Wilkerson, 36, who two days before her death had talked to police about getting a restraining order against Crawford after he threatened her on Facebook. She and her daughter had moved into an apartment on 20th Street hoping to escape Crawford, who Wilkerson said had become increasingly violent with her when they lived together.

On the day she died, Wilkerson called police and told them someone in the apartment leasing office had given Crawford her address when he called posing as someone from the Urban League of Palm Beach County.

According to arrest reports, Wilkerson also warned her daughter to be careful that morning when she went to play outside, because Crawford, who they called “Justin,” may have found them. When the girl returned home, police said, she found her mother bleeding from multiple stab wounds to her chest and also saw Crawford running away.

Crawford, who told police he stabbed Wilkerson in the kitchen after they argued, had been set to stand trial at least twice this year, but the case was postponed.

The last time his trial was set to begin, jail deputies had to take him to the hospital after he complained of chest pains. Days earlier, he had rejected a plea offer of 45 years in prison.