Rival Business

One way to get rid of the competition is to hire some thugs to deal with him—in the most permanent way.

Unfortunately for the thugs, they lived in a state that had tough penalties. And extremely unfortunate for the business owner's mother, who he lived with, she was amid the shooting.

Leading up to the shooting, the son had agreed to sell a portion of his lawn-care business to his rival. The rival made a deposit, but then the son went to jail on an unrelated charge.

Because the partial sale had stalled while the business owner was incarcerated, the rival attempted to take over the son’s lease on a building where he stored his equipment. This overt attempt to gain access to her son’s business, his mother and sister filed a civil suit against the rival business owner.

The rival business owner supposedly planned to kill the son upon his release from jail, offering $5,000 to the hitmen. On the night this murder-for-hire occurred, the young men (all aged nineteen) went to the home where the mother and son lived. They couldn’t find a place to park, so they returned to where the rival business owner was. He drove them back to the home and dropped them off.

Before they entered the home, one man sprained his ankle and couldn’t take part. The two men remaining shot the home’s sliding glass door and entered the home. They shot the son as he ran down the hallway. When they saw the mother, they shot her too. The son played dead. They had fatally wounded his mother. The men called the rival business owner and reported that they had completed the job and needed a ride.

The men made so much noise shooting at the door and then inside the home that neighbors called the police. By the time the shooters needed a ride, there were too many law enforcement vehicles headed to the location. The rival business owner told the shooters to run through the woods to get back to the apartment. If the result wasn’t so sad, this would sound more like an episode from the old TV show “The Three Stooges” than a true crime.

All men involved in the murder-for-hire scheme talked too much and to several people who weren’t involved. The son was an eyewitness, and a neighbor had seen the vehicle. In a short matter of time, law enforcement arrested all the people who played a part in this crime.

The man who had shot the mother opted for a trial. A jury found him guilty, and the court sentenced him to death. The other men accepted plea agreements, and the court sentenced them to life in prison. So far, parole boards have not released any of the men.

There was much discussion between the prosecution and the defense about same crime-same penalty. Fourteen years after the shooting, the jury’s death sentence remained in place, and the prison executed the young shooter sitting on death row by lethal injection.

Source: United States Court of Appeals, County Prosecutor

All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Criminal cases may have been appealed or verdicts overturned since I researched the case. All information is provided on an as-is basis.