Gunman gets 20 years in death of UW-Whitewater student Purcell Pearson
Purcell Pearson had plans.
He had graduated with a degree in psychology, along with a deep passion for giving a voice to the underserved and changing the narratives about young Black people on Milwaukee's north side, where he grew up.
"That's what he wanted to do: to help those who needed it," his mother, Stephanie Johnson, recalled. "He wanted to be a positive influence in society."
A chance — and very tragic — meeting more than two years ago with Ismael Moreno and Tyrell Joseph over a pair of sunglasses would extinguish those ambitions.
Pearson, 22, a student leader at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, was fatally shot in February 2021 during an attempted robbery of designer eyeglasses he had been selling to customers he found online.
One by one, friends and family members unpacked stories and anecdotes about the young man known to those closest to him as "Purcy" during Moreno's sentencing Friday.
Most wore white "Justice for Purcell" T-shirts. They remembered him as an intelligent, affable man with an indelible smile who made friends with little to no effort.
"We built a big brother-little sister relationship. He introduced me to anime," friend Alexis Johnson told Judge John Franke's packed Milwaukee County courtroom. "Now, I can't watch it anymore since he passed."
Franke ordered Moreno to a 20-year prison term. Moreno also will serve 15 years of extended supervision after he's released.
Moreno was just days from his 17th birthday when, according to a criminal complaint, he and Joseph inquired about the eyeglasses through a fake name online and arranged a meeting with Pearson.
The three met in the 2200 block of West Wisconsin Avenue on Feb. 6, 2021, outside Pearson’s apartment, and Pearson was fatally shot.
Joseph was arrested in July 2021. He pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless homicide, party to a crime, the following January. Joseph, 19, received a nine-year prison sentence.
Moreno was charged with first-degree reckless homicide, party to a crime, but managed to evade arrest for more than a year.
He was captured in San Diego in May 2022 — 15 months after the shooting. A Milwaukee County jury convicted him in April.
To hear his mother, Queen Maya-Sati Earth, tell the story, Moreno also had plans.
She said her oldest child and only son came from a loving, family-oriented home. He was an honors student through elementary school and was awarded an academic scholarship to attend Marquette High School.
Moreno, however, chose to go to Martin Luther High School, where she said he continued to excel academically and in sports.
He played basketball, held down a job at a Cousins sub shop and had "aspirations of making it to Duke University," she said.
She asked for leniency for her son.
"I know my son at his core, he is not the monster or villain the media nor the victims (sic) family has portrayed him to be," she wrote in a letter to the judge. "My son, despite being imperfect in many ways, has always shown respect, compassion, positivity, hope, courage and dedication throughout his adolescence.
"He is still a teen who is growing into a young man. I know he can and will be productive, law-abiding citizen when given the opportunity."
Moreno was given 391 days credit for the time he served in jail while awaiting trial.
Franke ordered that Moreno not be eligible for early release.
That's little consolation for Johnson, who attended all of Moreno's and Joseph's hearings.
"Now, I can start healing," she told the Journal Sentinel. "I feel relief, not justice. I'll never have justice, because I'll never have my son back."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ismael Moreno gets 20 years in shooting death of UW-Whitewater student
