In the early evening of November 6, 2018, a sense of normalcy settled over a Marion, Indiana neighborhood as the last of the daycare children were picked up and residents prepared for the evening. That peace was shattered by the sound of two gunshots, a tragic punctuation to the life of 19-year-old Maurtreyviaun Sanders. Known to his loved ones as 'Trey,' Sanders was a recent graduate of Marion High School, where he had been a promising athlete on the football and basketball teams. He was actively working towards his dream of playing college basketball. That dream, however, came to a violent and abrupt end on a south side street.
After being shot, a wounded Sanders managed to run two blocks to a house where his father was working. He collapsed into his father's arms, having told him that he had been shot. With his last words, he indicated that the motive was robbery, stating, 'they were trying to get me, they were trying to rob me.' Despite being rushed to Marion General Hospital, Sanders succumbed to his injuries, which included at least one gunshot wound to the shoulder and neck area. His family remembered him as a quiet young man who was never in trouble and was always carrying a basketball.
The investigation into the murder of Maurtreyviaun Sanders led Marion police to two suspects, Lemere Jones and Demetrius Jackson. In a significant development, the investigation into Sanders' death also connected Jones and Jackson to another horrific crime, the December 30, 2018, shooting deaths of 42-year-old Javon Blackwell and his two young sons in Marion. In January 2019, both Jones and Jackson were arrested and faced a multitude of charges. For the death of Maurtreyviaun Sanders, both men were charged with murder, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and armed robbery.
The legal proceedings that followed were complex, with the charges for the triple homicide and the murder of Maurtreyviaun Sanders being handled separately. The trial for the murder of Sanders was scheduled to take place in February 2020. In connection with the triple homicide, Lemere Jones was convicted on three counts of murder and conspiracy to commit armed robbery and was sentenced to an aggregate of 195 years in prison. Demetrius Jackson was also convicted of murder and armed robbery charges for his role in the deaths of the Blackwell family. While the outcomes for the triple murder case are clear, the specific verdict and sentencing for Jones and Jackson in the murder of Maurtreyviaun Sanders are not detailed in publicly available online sources.
