On the night of January 12, 2016, a burst of gunfire shattered the evening quiet at the Villages Apartments on Old Hickory Boulevard in Jackson, Tennessee. When officers from the Jackson Police Department arrived around 10:00 p.m., they discovered a gray Pontiac parked in front of one of the buildings, its frame scarred by the recent violence. Inside the vehicle, they found the body of 23-year-old Mondarrius Miller, who had sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Witnesses at the apartment complex reported hearing the gunshots and then seeing two men fleeing the area. Their attention was drawn to a silver Chevrolet Impala parked nearby on Old Hickory Boulevard, which they had observed the fleeing men enter. The area around Miller's vehicle was littered with several. 45 caliber spent casings, painting a grim picture of the final moments of his life. The investigation into the shooting was swift, and investigators began to piece together the events that led to the fatal encounter.
The trail eventually led to Cedric Evans, who was later indicted by a Madison County Grand Jury for the first-degree premeditated murder of Mondarrius Miller. In a subsequent court proceeding on February 15, 2019, Evans pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder. As part of an agreed-upon plea deal, he was sentenced to thirty-five years of incarceration for the killing. Evans also pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, receiving a concurrent ten-year sentence for that charge.
