A man left the maternity ward and his own baby boy to fire shots that killed a 9-year-old Ferguson girl, Jamyla Bolden, in 2015, prosecutors said after the man pleaded guilty and was sentenced Friday.
De’Eris Brown, 23, pleaded guilty in St. Louis County Circuit Court to second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon-shooting at a building and two counts of armed criminal action as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. The deal resulted in the dismissal of a gun charge and an armed criminal action charge and a recommendation of 22 years in prison.
In court, Assistant Circuit Attorney Melissa Price Smith said that police were called about 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 18, 2015, and discovered one of the victims was “a beautiful, innocent 9-year-old child who was
laying on the bed doing her homework.”
Jamyla’s mother, Kendric Henderson, was next to her daughter on the bed and was shot and wounded in the thigh.
Brown, who police said had fired the gun in retaliation for a theft, was identified by several people after the shooting and later confessed to police.
Circuit Judge Stanley Wallach then turned to Brown and asked if Price’s statements about the crime were “substantially true.” Brown said they were.
When it was his turn to speak, Brown, who’d been wiping away tears during the hearing, turned to Jamyla’s relatives and read from a written statement. He offered his “deepest apology for the enormous mistake that I made,” and said it “hurts me inside to know I took an innocent child’s life.”
He also asked for forgiveness.
Wallach then sentenced Brown to 22 years in prison. The sentence will run at the same time as a 10-year sentence for
a 2014 St. Charles County robbery case. Brown had been given probation and ordered to pay $500 to two victims in that case, but violated his probation with the shooting, court records show.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch told the Post-Dispatch that Brown’s son was born shortly before the shooting. Brown left the hospital to retaliate against someone who had taken something from him during a Ferguson protest — possibly a phone or a wallet, McCulloch said. Brown did not know who was in the house, and the person who he believed stole from him was not there, McCulloch said. That person was killed a few months later, but Brown was in jail at the time, McCulloch said.
Brown returned to the hospital about midnight. He would later try unsuccessfully to use his son’s birth as an alibi for the shooting, McCulloch said. McCulloch said that it did appear as if Brown was remorseful for the crime.
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