Last of 5 charged in 2021 Urbana robbery involving bayonet gets 52 years for firing fatal shot

Apr. 5—URBANA — The final participant in a 2021 robbery that turned fatal was sentenced Thursday to 52 years in prison for stabbing and shooting a Champaign man with a bayoneted-rifle.

Champaign County Judge Roger Webber handed down the sentence to Erion V. Davis-Murdock, 25, of Urbana, after a jury convicted him in September 2023 of first-degree murder.

Davis-Murdock's prison sentence included a 25-year-enhancement because he was found to have personally discharged a gun that caused the death of Trenton Jones, 27, on Dec. 20, 2021, inside an Urbana home.

Ryan O. Mason, 32, of Champaign — one of five people charged in connection with the incident — agreed to take the stand in Davis-Murdock's trial in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Mason testified that he was following along with a plan fashioned by Davis-Murdock in which their respective girlfriends lured Mr. Jones to a house on Division Avenue with the promise to have sex with him.

Once Mr. Jones was partially undressed, Davis-Murdock and Mason rushed into the house, armed and wearing ski masks.

When Mr. Jones resisted their efforts to grab cash from his pocket, Davis-Murdock stabbed him in the chest with the bayonet on his rifle.

Mr. Jones ran to an upstairs bedroom and was crouched in a closet when Davis-Murdock told Mason to shoot him, Mason said.

Mason testified that he closed his eyes and fired once with a handgun. Davis-Murdock said he "didn't finish the job," Mason recalled, and shot Mr. Jones in the chest, killing him.

Recommending 60 years in prison for Davis-Murdock, Assistant State's Attorney Troy Lozar described the killing as gratuitous and cold-blooded, and emphasized that the robbery was not spur of the moment but deliberately planned.

While there was no evidence that the killing was premeditated, Lozar identified the critical moment as when Mr. Jones fled upstairs.

At that point, he was no longer a threat, and the two men could have left the house, Lozar said.

Instead, they chased him upstairs.

"Knowing that there were two armed men who had already injured him rattling through the doors and coming down the hallway as he hid and cowered inside a closet is not a good way for the last few moments of your life to pass," Lozar said.

"I can only imagine what's going on in his head as they come in and have a discussion of, 'You better shoot him; you shoot him,' and he's sitting there, listening to them say these things," Lozar continued.

"Then they shoot him, and that first one doesn't turn the lights out. He gets to sit there, with the blood running out of his hand, waiting for what happens next."

Lozar also cited evidence presented during Mason's sentencing that indicated Davis-Murdock was the one mainly responsible for leading the robbery and delivering the final killing shot.

The prosecutor argued that Davis-Murdock didn't immediately show remorse after the killing, as he had the women call 911 and try to throw off police.

Lozar also called a detective to the stand who testified that a search of Davis-Murdock's phone located pictures of him with various guns.

Davis-Murdock's attorney, Jennifer Patton, recommended the minimum of 45 years for her client, saying though it's not an excuse, Davis-Murdock practically slipped through the cracks of the system. He was sentenced to a juvenile prison for aggravated robbery at 15 and transferred to an adult prison at 17 — so the most important years of his brain development took place behind bars.

Patton also noted that Mr. Jones was also armed, there was some evidence of mutual combat, and the accounts of what happened from all the co-defendants who received much lighter sentences do not line up.

Her client has maintained he is innocent and that events did not transpire that night the way Mason described, Patton said.

"I know I'm the last person y'all want to hear this from, but please don't judge me off the unknown. Just like you guys, I'm still puzzled by that night," Davis-Murdock said, as several of Mr. Jones' family members sat in the courtroom.

"I'm sorry that we all lost somebody that was special that night and I have to pay for the unknown, as well my children I might never get to hold again."

While Webber said his sentence needed to avoid deprecating the many different serious circumstances of the crime, he acknowledged that the case contained a lot of mitigation.

The judge noted that Davis-Murdock started life at a serious disadvantage when he was removed from his parents as the result of domestic violence, suffered a gunshot wound to the head in 2012 and meets the criteria for an intellectual disability and mental-health issues.

Davis-Murdock faced 25 years to life in prison for committing first-degree murder with a firearm.

He must serve 100 percent of his sentence and was given credit for 837 days already served.

Mason was sentenced in November to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder in the incident.

The two women involved, Shaniquh T. Johns, 32, and Kareasha Q. Alston, 29, were both sentenced in December 2022 to probation for conspiracy to commit robbery.

Davis-Murdock's half-brother, Jaquan M. Shorter, 25, who gave the men a ride after the killing, was sentenced in November 2022 to probation after pleading guilty to obstructing justice.