‘It wasn’t on purpose.’ Three plead in fatal shooting during Columbus car break-in
Three more suspects once charged with murder in a man’s shooting during a car break-in outside a Columbus nightclub have pleaded guilty to reduced charges.
And having been held for months in the Muscogee County Jail, while awaiting trial, they soon could be freed from prison with credit for time served, attorneys said.
The defendants were Cecil Brian Berguin III, 20; Vic’trez Jaequan Thomas, 20; and Jyquarious D. Varner, 17. Each pleaded guilty to illegally entering an auto, and each was sentenced to five years in prison with three to serve and the rest on probation.
Attorneys for Berguin and Varner said all three suspects have been jailed about 35 months, and soon will be eligible for parole, once they are credited with the time already held in confinement.
Their pleas follow that of Raymond Leon Richmond III, who was only 14 when he shot Samuel Devoid London in a parking lot at the Foxy Lady, a lounge at 3023 Victory Drive, where the group went to steal from cars on June 5, 2020.
Richmond, now 17, pleaded guilty May 31 to to voluntary manslaughter, entering an auto and using a gun to commit a crime. Judge John Martin sentenced him to 30 years in prison with 22 to serve and the rest on probation.
The four pleas leave one suspect whose case is yet to be resolved: Santonio Lamar Williams, 18. His attorney, Michael Garner, said Thursday that Williams also has been offered a plea deal, and is considering it.
“There well may not be a trial,” Garner said.
All the suspects were teenagers in 2020 when they drove around Columbus in two vehicles looking for cars to break into: Like Richmond, Varner was only 14; Williams was 15; and both Berguin and Thomas were 17.
They got together sometime before midnight, and traveled to the Foxy Lady around 2 a.m., said prosecutor Christopher George of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, who was assigned the case because local District Attorney Stacey Jackson had a conflict.
What happened?
George said the suspects were traveling in a Toyota Camry and a Nissan Altima, with Richmond driving the Altima even though he was too young to have a license. When they got to the lounge, Richmond got out with a gun and started checking for unlocked car doors, using a T-shirt wrapped around his hand to avoid leaving fingerprints.
He found London’s 2019 Jeep Compass unlocked, and got into the driver’s seat. That’s when London came out of the lounge and dragged Richmond from the car, and a struggle began. Richmond shot London as he fell atop the victim, George said.
The suspects fled in a panic, with Richmond dropping his T-shirt and gun. Three got into one of the cars they were using and fled, taking the keys to the other car and leaving two of their cohorts to flee on foot, said George, who could not recall which car was left behind.
Through the abandoned car, the T-shirt, the gun, fingerprints left at the scene and the suspects’ own statements, Columbus police found enough evidence to charge all of them with murder, alleging Richmond was the shooter and the rest acted as his accomplices, or “parties to the crime.”
As three of them pleaded guilty only to entering an auto on Thursday, Judge Martin lectured them on the risks of using firearms while committing theft, noting they could have faced at least 30 years in prison, had a jury convicted them of murder.
Once someone gets shot, there’s no taking it back, the judge told Varner: “There’s no eraser on the end of a firearm.”
When Berguin admitted he gained nothing from the car burglary, Martin told him, “You could have lost 30 years of your life for nothing.”
Thomas was the only defendant to make a statement, apologizing to London’s sister, Eunice London. “I would like to apologize to you and your family,” he said. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
The sister said London was “a devoted father with an infectious smile,” and his children still are struggling to cope without him. “They have lost a devoted father that they loved dearly,” she told the court.
London, who was 40 years old, was pronounced dead at the hospital about an hour after the shooting, authorities said.
