A 23-year-old Little Rock man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing another man during a drug deal turned robbery.
Edwin Kejuan Warren, arrested the day after Jaxson Edward Guinn, 19, of Morrilton was fatally shot in June 2013, had said he fired in self-defense after the younger man tried to take his gun from him.
But Thursday, with attorneys Bret Qualls and Lott Rolfe IV, Warren apologized to both the judge and Guinn's family as he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, and aggravated robbery in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors recommended the 35-year prison term imposed by Circuit Judge Leon Johnson and dropped an aggravated assault charge related to accusations that Warren had threatened another man, Wesley Ball, with a gun.
According to police reports, officers responding to complaints about a shooting found Guinn mortally wounded inside a pickup in the 2500 block of South Schiller Street, where he managed to drive after being shot on Battery Street.
The police investigation, based on witness accounts, determined that Guinn and Ball had been negotiating the sale of cocaine and prescription medication with Warren when the defendant pulled his gun and demanded their cash and the contraband. Guinn was shot twice when he did not immediately comply with the demand, according to a police report.
Questioned after his arrest, Warren told detectives that Guinn had tried to hit him with brass knuckles and had pulled a knife on him. Warren said he pulled his gun and the weapon fired when Guinn grabbed it, according to reports.
Police disputed Warren's account because it doesn't account for the facial injuries Guinn had -- wounds that witnesses said the victim suffered when Warren beat him with a pistol before the shooting.
In a December 2013 letter to the judge from Warren's mother, Aurea Torres, she said Warren and Guinn had been best friends for years and they had a been regular visitors at each other's homes. Torres said in the letter, which was included in the court files, that she had considered Guinn another son.
She said the men had a falling out when Guinn had accused Warren of stealing a GPS unit from him and then threatened to kill Warren, according to the letter.
Metro on 01/10/2015