DISTRICT HEIGHTS, Md. (AP) - A Maryland man has been sentenced to five consecutive life sentences plus 115 years in prison for a shooting that killed four people and wounded another.
Lawrence Rogers, Jr., 28, was sentenced Thursday on charges including first-degree and second-degree murder and illegally possessing a firearm, news outlets report. Four of the life sentences don’t include the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors have said Rogers entered a District Heights home in 2016 and shot the occupants, immediately killing three victims. Another person later died at a hospital, and the fifth victim, Jonathan Givons, survived being critically wounded. The motive in the slayings remains unclear, and officials have said there’s no indication that Rogers knew the victims. During the trial, assistant public defender Richard Rydelek noted that money, jewelry and drugs remained in the home after the shooting, so it wasn’t a robbery. On the night of the shooting, Givons briefly left to walk his dog Cinnamon, he testified at Roger’s September trial, according to The Washington Post. He said returned to hear his girlfriend screaming, “Why are you doing this?”
He then encountered the shooter and tried to run, but was shot and fell to the ground as the shooter fled, he said. He never directly identified Rogers as the shooter, but instead described what the shooter looked like.
Authorities then matched that description to someone spotted on surveillance video of the area and identified the person as Rogers, who was later found hiding in a closet at a Washington, D.C. apartment with his hands in the air.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.