Man gets 240 years in prison for 2020 slayings of 4 people

Apr 28, 2023, 12:53 PM

FILE - Officers walk out of the apartment complex where four people, one woman and three men, were ...

FILE - Officers walk out of the apartment complex where four people, one woman and three men, were found dead in Indianapolis, Feb. 5, 2020. A man convicted of four counts of murder and other charges in the fatal Indianapolis shootings of three young men and a young woman was sentenced Friday, April 28, 2023, to 240 years in prison. (Grace Hollars/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(Grace Hollars/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A man convicted of four counts of murder and other charges in the fatal Indianapolis shootings of three young men and a young woman was sentenced Friday to 240 years in prison.

Lasean Watkins also was found guilty in March of felony murder and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury in the February 2020 shooting deaths of three men — Marcel Wills, 20; Braxton Ford, 21; and Jalen Roberts, 19 — and a woman, Kimari Hunt, 21, according to a news release. The victims’ bodies were found in a ransacked Indianapolis apartment.

“In 2020, we were rocked by this senseless act,” Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said in the news release.

Co-defendants Cameron Banks and Desmond Banks, convicted last month with Watkins, each were sentenced to 220 years in prison, while a fourth suspect, Rodrience Anderson, pleaded guilty last October to four counts of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury while agreeing to cooperate with the prosecution. He was sentenced to 35 years with five years suspended.

WXIN-TV has reported that Cameron Banks and Desmond Banks are brothers and that, alongside Watkins and Anderson, they ransacked the apartment and cleaned out a safe after more than 50 rounds were fired during the killings.

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Man gets 240 years in prison for 2020 slayings of 4 people