First of three defendants in Toni Knight murder case is sentenced Thursday
PETERSBURG – One of three defendants in the July 2022 shooting death of a young woman at a city apartment building will spend the next 10 years behind bars, a Circuit Court judge ruled Thursday.
Keyshawn Hicks, 18, was sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison with all but 10 of them suspended. The sentence, the result of a plea agreement, is a blended one, with most of it on a second-degree murder conviction – 30 years with 23 suspended. The remaining three years for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony are mandatory for weapons-related convictions.
Hicks was 16 years old when the shootout occurred July 2, 2022, at the ArtistSpace Lofts apartments on Perry Street. Nineteen-year-old Toni “Stinka” Knight died when she was caught in crossfire among three people in the lobby of the apartment building. Knight’s two cousins were with her, and one suffered a non-gunshot head wound.
A Petersburg jury convicted the other two defendants – Jesiah Flowers and Devin Mitchell, both 21 – of second-degree murder and other charges. Flowers will be sentenced in November, Mitchell a month later.
More: Men shooting at each other in Petersburg apartment complex convicted in bystander's death
At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Knight’s mother, Diane Branzelle, burst into tears several times talking about the impact her daughter’s death has had on her and her family. Amid sobs, Branzelle talked about how she has been unable to sleep since that day and is going back to work next week for the first time since Knight died.
“She was my best friend,” Branzelle said. “She was my hip.”
Branzelle said she last saw Knight 45 minutes before she died. They were planning a birthday party for one of the children in the family, and Knight took her two cousins back to ArtistSpace with her to get ready for the party.
Video shown during Thursday’s hearing and during Flowers’ and Mitchell’s trial last June depicts Mitchell, Flowers and Hicks begin shooting at one another as Mitchell was leaving the building. One of the cousins walked in ahead of Knight and was in the foyer when Knight was shot through the glass door. The other child with her could be seen running away from the building.
Even though the bullets Hicks fired did not strike Knight, he still was brought up on the same charges for engaging in the gunfight. In exchange for his plea to second-degree murder and use of a firearm, Petersburg prosecutors dropped the other charges.
Despite the agreement, Branzelle told Circuit Judge Joseph Teefey she was not a fan of the shorter sentence for Hicks. It is her and her family, not the defendants, who are serving life sentences because her daughter is gone.
Looking directly at Hicks, Branzelle told him through tears, “You didn’t think of anyone else but yourselves. You took off running and left my daughter there to die.”
Hicks and the other defendants will still be able to talk to their loved ones, she said. “I have to talk to my daughter through a picture. I have to talk to my daughter through her phone,” Branzelle cried.
The mother then turned back to Teefey and pleaded for more than just the agreed-upon term: “Please, please, please, please, please … I want far more than that.”
Eldrin Logan, Hicks’ stepfather, told Teefey that Hicks’ family still loves and supports him. Yet, they also know he must be held accountable for his actions.
Speaking to the gunfight, Logan told the court, “This was not how he was taught or raised.” He apologized to his family and to Knight’s family for what Hicks has put everyone through.
Then, looking directly at his stepson, Logan said Hicks and the other defendants “knew y’all weren’t supposed to be there.”
“But now it’s time for you to put your big-boy pants on and man up,” Logan said from the stand.
Hicks’ mother took the stand on her son’s behalf but said very little. When asked by her son’s attorney if she had anything else she wanted to say to the court, she shook her head.
Defense attorney Sante Piracci told the court that even though Hicks was the only juvenile charged, he was more of an adult than the others were because he made no excuses for why he was there. Noting the testimony from the June trial, Piracci said Flowers and Mitchell pleaded not guilty and spent their whole case blaming the other for what happened.
“Those two folks have shown a lot less wisdom, a lot less maturity, than the child,” Piracci said. Because of that, he added, Teefey should pronounce a sentence “at the low end of the agreement.”
Lead prosecutor Thomas Chaffe noted that in his closing arguments, but the fact that Hicks was there and took part still means that Teefey should impose the total 10-year active sentence.
Teefey suspended 23 years of the sentence with the stipulations that Hicks stay out of trouble for the first four years after he released. He also ordered five years of probation upon release. Should Hicks violate either of those stipulations, any or all of the suspended years could be reimposed.
Hicks spoke in his own defense Thursday afternoon. He apologized for “everything I put everybody through,” adding, “I gotta take responsibility for what I did.”
Outside the courthouse, Chaffe told Knight’s family, “Things could not have gone any better in there.” Branzelle showed The Progress-Index a copy of the victim-impact statement she was prepared to read in the hearing but never did.
“The next one is going to be the hardest,” Branzelle said of Flowers’ Nov. 14 hearing. Clutching her copy of the statement, she said, “I'm going to read all of this then.”
Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: One of 3 ArtistSpace shooters gets 10 years in prison
