80 Years To Life For Man Who Killed Four In Bristol Twp. As Teen

A 41-year-old man who perpetrated a Bristol Township mass killing in 1998 at the age of 17 will not be eligible for parole until he is well into his 97th year of life, a Bucks County Court of Common Pleas senior judge determined Monday.

Ivory King, a former Camden resident who has called Pennsylvania correctional institutions home since shortly after the killings, was sentenced to 80 years to life behind bars. The clock on the new sentence starts in late 1998 when King was originally sentenced.

King’s resentencing came due to state and federal court decisions that overturned life sentences for those who were juveniles when they were sentenced to life.

King went to a Memorial Day weekend party in the Venice Ashby section of Bristol Township early in the morning of May 23, 1998 and opened fire at unit K-55 along Beaver Dam Road, according to prosecutors.

Anthony Jackson, 37; Jackie Wilson, 27; SaPhil Taylor, 19; and Milika Brinson, 22, all of Bristol Township, were all shot and died. A then-21-year-old Bensalem Township woman was struck in the head with a bullet and survived her injuries, authorities said.

King carried out the shooting with the help of two others as retaliation, but none of those killed were his intended targets.

Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub, who led the prosecution, said King was “recklessly spraying bullets into the crowd.”

“He assassinated his four victims with exquisite precision,” the prosecutor said.

The district attorney’s office sought to keep King behind bars for the rest of his life, as was his original sentence, while his defense made the case he is a changed man who should be eligible for parole now.

RELATED: Families Testify In Resentencing For Juvenile Lifer

Caroline Heller, the attorney represented King, told the court her client has taken responsibility for the killings and has worked to improve himself. She cited testimony from experts and Pennsylvania Department of Corrections staff that he is a changed man who has even mentored others against violence.

“Ivory can change, Ivory has changed, and Ivory will change,” she said.

The attorney said an expert found King has a “low risk of reoffending.”

She noted King had a rough upbringing and was turned away by his father.

While behind bars, he hasn’t had a misconduct write up in prison for the past seven years, she added.

Weintraub gave King credit for his efforts to reform himself and help others behind bars, but he reminded Senior Judge Rea Boylan of King’s actions and that four of the victims are dead.

“He has already lived longer than all of them,” Weintraub said.

“What he’s done to these families is irreversible,” he stated. “In one night, he tore an entire Bristol community asunder.”

The county’s top prosecutor said the crime was so serious he argued the court should “keep him in prison for the rest of his life.”

“It is a bitter pill of irony that this defendant gets to accomplish this in prison while [his victims] are gone,” he said. “What he has done to these families is irreversible.”

The prosecutor said the killings have damaged generations of people in the victims’ families and traumatized the entire community.

Before imposing the new sentence, Boylan said she read the 1998 transcripts in the case, jailhouse reports and expert filings, testimony made last Friday in court, King’s statement in the courtroom last week, sentencing guidelines, and the arguments made by the prosecution and defense.

King was 17 years, four months, and 12 days old when the killings happened. He was just months away from being an adult and not a juvenile.

Boylan said the killings “reverberated through generations,” and King’s ability to show a “capacity for change” doesn’t outweigh that.

King’s family left the courtroom with solemn expressions, while the victims’ families gathered for a group hug and said a brief prayer in the hallway of the Bucks County Justice Center in Doylestown Borough.

“Thank you, God, for bringing us through all the chaos,” they said.

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