Credit: Bucks County Department of Corrections
Convicted killer Breon Powell will spend life in prison after a jury decided Wednesday not to send him to death.
Powell, who turned 22 this week, and Kazair Gist, 19, were found guilty on Tuesday of shooting to death of popular Levittown musician Danny DeGennaro. The popular guitarist was shot death in December 2011 inside his Bristol Township home in Levittown’s Crabtree section after a botched robbery.
Advertisements
‘Please, don’t kill my son,” Powell’s mother told the jury, according to an account from the Bucks County Courier Times.
Prosecutors made the case during the 5-week-long trial for Powell and Gist that the 22-year-old fired the shotgun blast to the chest that killed DeGennaro. Gist is also accused of shooting a handgun and missing the popular musician, but he was under 18 at the time and is not eligible for the death penalty.
Read more on what happened Wednesday from the Bucks County Courier Times’ courts reporter
During the trial for murder plot mastermind 20-year-old Jermaine Jackson in May, prosecutors made the case that Powell and Gist were directly the men behind the murder of DeGennaro, which began as an attempt to rob DeGennaro for a drug debt inside his Crabtree Drive home in Bristol Township.
Advertisements
Danasia Bakr, 19, and Tatyana Henderson, 19, both of the Morrisville section of Falls Township, testified in spring that one “loud gunshot” and then another was heard. Henderson said that the three young men then ran to the waiting car and were “shaken up” and “acting crazy.” Powell was yelling how he shot “the guy” and Gist said, “I shot him too,” according to statements made by Henderson.
Trials for Bakr and Henderson, who are cooperating with officials, are forthcoming.
Advertisements
Jackson was previously found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
