‘Justice has been served’ | Man convicted for 2017 North County quadruple murder | St. Louis News Headlines

GLASGOW VILLAGE, Mo. (KMOV.com) – After hours of deliberating, a jury discovered a 24-year-old man responsible of killing 4 individuals, together with a 10-year-old boy, in north St. Louis County in 2017.

Ja’Vonne Dupree was discovered responsible of 4 counts of first-degree homicide and different felony expenses simply earlier than midnight Friday. On Aug. 24, 2017, police discovered the our bodies of 56-year-old Patricia Steward, 20-year-old Joseph Corley, 18-year-old Deandre Kelley Jr., and 10-year-old Terrence Dehart inside a house in Glasgow Village throughout a welfare examine. All 4 victims had been shot to demise.

“It is simply as grisly as you’d most likely think about it to be,” Benjamin Granda with the St. Louis County Police Division mentioned describing the scene in 2017.

Through the trial, relations of the victims testified that Dupree was homeless and brought in by the “matriarch of the household, a hip-hop producer who labored with Dupree as a rapper.” The 24-year-old killed them after being kicked out of their house, officers mentioned. Instantly after the taking pictures, Dupree picked up all of the shell casings earlier than stealing numerous electronics, garments, sneakers, and a automotive.

He was arrested 4 months later in Columbia, Missouri. Investigators found the 24-year-old boasted about committing the crimes, revealing particulars not recognized to the general public on social media afterwards.

“The unimaginable struggling of a tremendous and loving household doesn’t finish with these responsible verdicts, however at the very least they know that justice has been served and that they had been intimately concerned within the success of this investigation and prosecution,” St. Louis County Prosecuting Lawyer Wesley Bell mentioned. 

Ja’Vonne Dupree’s life sentence with out the opportunity of parole continues to be drawing public criticism from those that wished the demise penalty.

Bell spoke with Information 4 on Saturday following the responsible verdict. He says he has remained adamant in not searching for the demise penalty, saying partially that the demise penalty doesn’t efficiently function a deterrent to violence and taking that route might’ve meant years if not many years longer going via the courts.

“And in addition the details present that it’s not a deterrent. The counties with the very best murder charges have the demise penalty. The counties with the bottom murder charges haven’t got the demise penalty,” Bell mentioned. “On the finish of the day, I do not need to kill anybody and I do not need to ask anybody to kill anybody for me.”

Bell says this case – and one other responsible verdict reached final evening in a different 2016 murder case – reveals the hassle his workplace is placing towards addressing violent crime within the St. Louis group.

“That mentioned, our workplace, if you have a look at related located workplaces across the nation, our workplace is understaffed and so the women and men of our workplace should do extra with much less, and our price range for instance has not elevated in over 20 years,” Bell mentioned.

He says he’ll proceed to advocate for his workplace to have the monetary sources and manpower wanted to take up extra circumstances sooner and stop any backlogging.

“If we going to make the argument that public security is first then a type of issues is ensuring that our workplace has all its wants, has all of the prosecutors that it wants in order that the ratio of these caseloads isn’t too excessive and make it extra manageable,” Bell mentioned.

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