Killer of friend who gave him a place to stay in Yonkers gets maximum prison term
William Pryor was among those helped by Marquis Muniz, who let his longtime friend stay in his Yonkers apartment when he had nowhere else to live.
But Pryor returned the favor by fatally shooting Muniz, 29, after he was evicted because Muniz suspected him of stealing.
Muniz's loved ones assailed Pryor for his cowardice and cold heart Friday in Westchester County Court before he was sentenced to the maximum, 25 years to life in prison.
Earlier: Yonkers man convicted of fatally shooting roommate in 2022
Yasmine Leonard, Muniz's live-in girlfriend, discovered the bullet-riddled body when she returned to the Riverdale Avenue apartment on the afternoon of March 3, 2022.
She said the killing has traumatized her, that Pryor had "robbed me of my happily-ever-after, my true love." The shooting, Leonard added, "was the "hateful, envious actions of someone who my man only helped and gave love to when no one else would."
"I wish you only the most miserable existence in prison," she said, adding that Muniz would be remembered for his generosity to others, while Pryor would be remembered as a "loser coward."
A neighbor heard shots
Pryor, 23, had been removing his things from the apartment when 10 shots were fired and Muniz was hit at least four times. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting. But at trial, prosecutors Daniel Flecha and Catalina Blanca Buitrago laid out a powerful circumstantial case to match a neighbor's hearing gunshots, her subsequent phone call about the shooting, and video surveillance showing Pryor going in and out of the building a short time earlier and leaving for the last time just moments after the shooting.
He was convicted of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon following a three-week jury trial this fall.
Muniz had a daughter. Muniz's father, Rahmel Bryant, said there was an "outward ripple" of pain and depression after the killing. He said Pryor had "bit the hand that fed him" and that prison wasn't a sufficient punishment.
"You deserve the same fate you gave Kiki," he said.
Muniz's mother, Christina, had not expected to speak. But she got up at the end of the victim impact statements and tearfully told the judge how the sentence would not matter because it would not bring her son back or fill the hole in her heart. She said she never felt hate before the day her son was killed.
"I hate him," she said of Pryor.
Flecha acknowledged that Muniz was involved with drugs but urged the court to look beyond that and recognize his willingness to give of himself and the "unspeakable" loss to his family. He called the killing a "betrayal" that demanded the maximum punishment.
Defense requested minimum sentence
Defense lawyer Angelo MacDonald asked for the minimum 15 years to life, drawing jeers from Muniz's loved ones. He said Pryor was a young man, with a young daughter, and that he had advised Pryor not to speak at sentencing or discuss the case during a pre-sentence interview because Pryor would be appealing the conviction.
Acting state Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary said he felt the "palpable" grief of the two dozen relatives and friends of Muniz in the courtroom.
He cited Pryor's lack of remorse and said there was nothing in the case that recommended leniency.
But he still showed some. He also sentenced Pryor to the maximum for weapon possession, 15 years, but said it would be served at the same time as the murder sentence, rejecting Flecha's request for a consecutive sentence.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers NY fatal shooting: William Pryor gets maximum prison sentence
