A Missouri woman refused to wait for police to find her stolen SUV and arrest those responsible.
Instead, Demesha Coleman, 37, took matters into her own hands and opened fire on what she believed to be the perpetrators as they sat in her car, resulting in a gunfight in the middle of the gas station. In addition to killing a man in her car’s passenger seat, she also killed a bystander who had nothing to do with the car’s theft.
Coleman was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Friday after a jury found her guilty in March of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the deaths of 19-year-old Darius Jackson, who was in the SUV’s passenger seat, and 49-year-old Joseph Farrar, who was at the gas station buying medicine for his son. A third person was also hit by gunfire.
It was unclear if the people in the car were the ones who stole it.
“This case underscores the risks of taking matters into your own hands,” St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said in a statement. “Mrs. Coleman’s reckless actions tragically resulted in two deaths and one critical injury. The jury’s recommended sentence holds the defendant accountable for this unnecessary loss of life.”
The violence occurred on December 21, 2022, in St. Louis. That night, someone stole Coleman’s Hyundai SUV from her St. Louis County home. Coleman used the vehicle’s GPS to locate the Speedie gas station on the 8000 block of North Broadway. She called 911 twice, but eventually decided to pursue the car on her own.
Coleman and her 19-year-old son drove to the gas station, where four men sat in her vehicle. Coleman and her son met with a third man, whom prosecutors did not name in their press release.
That man and Coleman approached the SUV and started shooting. The men driving the stolen vehicle returned fire. Coleman’s shots killed Jackson and Farrar.
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Coleman’s defense attorneys claimed that she fired in self-defense after one of the men in her vehicle pointed a gun at her. Prosecutors charged Coleman with two counts of first-degree murder, but jurors found her not guilty. However, they found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action. Jurors recommended nine years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and four years for armed criminal action, which the judge upheld.
Farrar’s sister told local NBC affiliate KDSK that he was at the gas station to get flu medicine for his ailing 11-year-old son.
“Somebody else’s mess killed my brother,” his sister Michelle Jackson told a local television station a few days after the shooting.
