After Emotional Statement, Judge Sentences Man To 90 Years For Killing Pregnant Teen

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jul 21, 2016 3:23PM

Charinez Jefferson / Facebook / Celebrate Your Life

In a city where the shooting of children has become unnervingly routine and even innocents are not exempt from gun violence, one case still looms large in the city’s consciousness for the sheer brutality with which it was executed: the 2011 murder of Charinez Jefferson, a pregnant, unarmed 17-year-old girl who pleaded for her life before Timothy Jones shot bullet after bullet into her head, chest and back. Following a chilling statement from Jefferson’s late mother, Debbie, which was read in court by a prosecutor, a Cook County judge on Monday showed little leniency for the gunman who showed no pity to Jefferson, sentencing him to 90 years in prison.

Debbie died of cancer in February. But before she passed, she wrote the stinging but self-composed note, directed at Jones and presented during sentencing.

“I watched you during the trial and you showed no remorse. So maybe you wouldn’t know how I feel. From this day forward, when you open and close your mouth and eyes, and you are still able to walk and talk, stop and take a minute and think about the lives you destroyed.

“All of your sleepless nights and dreary days, I pray you ask God for forgiveness and to have mercy on your soul,” the statement read, according to the Tribune.

The night of the shooting, Jones initially targeted Charinez Jefferson’s male friend, a rival gang member, who had accompanied her to a corner store in Marquette Park. Jones, then 18, emerged from a car. He was angry from having been shot in the thigh earlier that day as part of a gang war, prosecutors said. After the male fled, Jones turned his gun on Jefferson, calling her "bitch" and shooting her eight times at close range, according to prosecutors.

Jefferson was fatally wounded; and although her son was saved, the child, Kahmani, will remain in a vegetative state, unable to see, speak, or breathe of his own volition.

Despite the cruelty and tragic ending, Debbie Jefferson nonetheless offered Jones some compassion in her late moments. She "had to find a way in my heart to forgive you ... I had to let go of anger, resentment, bitterness and hatred," she wrote.