In the early morning hours of June 23, 2017, a night out in Brooklyn turned fatal for 23-year-old Christina Stubbs. She and a companion, 27-year-old Devon Hannibal, were ambushed and shot to death inside a red Dodge Durango parked on Cleveland Street in the East New York neighborhood. The attack occurred around 4:45 a.m. after the couple had just left a nearby nightclub on Linden Boulevard.
Investigators believe Hannibal was the intended target of the execution-style shooting.
As he sat in the driver's seat, a gunman approached and fired nearly a dozen bullets into the vehicle, striking him multiple times. Stubbs, who was in the front passenger seat, was killed by a single gunshot. Both she and Hannibal were pronounced dead at the scene. Witnesses described the sound of the gunfire as being like a 'war zone.'
Within weeks of the shooting, police arrested 33-year-old Gary Martin in connection with the murders. The investigation continued, leading to the arrest of a second suspect, 36-year-old Kenrick Bayliss, nearly two years later in January 2019. Evidence presented by prosecutors showed that the attack was a coordinated ambush. Surveillance footage and cell phone records revealed that Bayliss had tracked the couple's movements inside the nightclub and acted as a lookout, while Martin retrieved a gun and carried out the shooting.
In September 2019, both Gary Martin and Kenrick Bayliss were convicted of two counts of second-degree murder. The following month, a Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice sentenced both men to 50 years to life in prison for their roles in the deaths of Christina Stubbs and Devon Hannibal. The Brooklyn District Attorney stated that the defendants had 'coldly orchestrated the execution of two young people' and that their 'ruthless violence shattered two families.'
