Tamarion Johnson
A man who shot and killed a 19-year-old female when she would not give him her drugs has been sentenced to serve 21 years in state prison for second-degree murder. Tamarion Johnson also got a concurrent six years for aggravated assault.
He appeared on Monday before Criminal Court Judge Don Poole.
A jury had found Johnson guilty in the homicide of Shawnquell Stanfield.
The slaying occurred on Sept.
24, 2018, at the intersection of North Chamberlain and Wilder Street. Sgt. Joe Neighbors with the Chattanooga Police Department, the lead detective on the case, testified that Johnson was attempting to rob Ms. Stanfield of her drugs in a car he had stolen. When Ms. Stanfield bolted from the car, Johnson, who was 17 at the time, shot multiple rounds in the direction of the victim.
In his closing argument, Executive Assistant District Attorney General Cameron Williams read a letter Johnson wrote to his ex-girlfriend a few days after the shooting. In the letter, Johnson said, “I’m sorry for killing 'Phat Baby’' (a nickname for Ms. Stanfield). “I really didn’t want to. All she had to do was give everything up. But she didn’t. She ran. So I laid her down.”
Hamilton County Assistant Medical Examiner Steven Cogswell testified that Ms. Stanfield sustained three gunshot wounds.
Assistant District Attorney AnCharlene Davis, co-counsel for the prosecution, said in her closing statement to the jury that Johnson stole a vehicle for the robbery, and, after getting Ms. Stanfield alone, was going to take her drugs at gunpoint. “He was not going to let her go, so she ran for her life,” said the prosecutor. “He brought a gun. Whether it’s his gun, the driver’s gun, he used it, and he used that gun to take her life.”