A 23-year-old Little Rock man accepted a 4̶0̶-̶y̶e̶a̶r̶ 80-year* prison sentence Wednesday for an April 2015 shooting that killed a man and wounded his sister in a city park.
Kevious Montrell "Keke" Foster pleaded no contest before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder, and committing a terroristic act for killing La'Darrius Galburth, 25, and wounding his sister, Kentaria Mechelle Banks, 21, at Cheatham Park on East Capitol Avenue, said deputy prosecutor John Hout. Prosecutors recommended the 4̶0̶-̶y̶e̶a̶r̶ 80-year* in exchange for Foster's plea.
Foster, who had no previous felonies, will have to serve 1̶0̶ 20* years before he is eligible for parole. Court files show Foster's most serious run-in with the law before the killing was a misdemeanor domestic-battery arrest in June 2014 in which he was accused of assaulting Javares Ledbetter in Little Rock. The charge was dismissed.
Foster was arrested after Banks identified him as the gunman, police said.
Galburth, a father of three, and Gregory Greene, 25, had been shooting dice at a table in the park with others and were just getting back into Galburth's borrowed, white 2015 Chevrolet Impala when the gunman rushed up to them, authorities said.
The gunman cursed Galburth and started shooting, police said.
Greene dove out of the way and hid under a wheel well, so he did not get a clear look at the gunman, according to police testimony from a previous hearing.
But Banks, who was shot in the left hip as she sat inside the car, picked Foster out of a photographic lineup. She had been sitting in the vehicle, which belonged to Galburth's fiancee, Sasha Hicks, while the men gambled, police said.
A tip from a woman who knows a friend of Foster's led police to put Foster's photograph in the lineup. Foster was arrested two days after the slaying.
After Foster's arrest, someone fired shots into the Pinewood Loop home of his mother, Juana Dalisa Ledbetter, police said.
Galburth and another man at the park dice table, Douglas Clayton, were present at an earlier shooting that wounded Clayton's brother, according to court records.
Jamie Olatreece Clayton, 23, was wounded and another man, Michael Cordell Strickland, was killed in the February 2015 shooting, according to testimony.
Two other men -- Calvin Bernard Williams and Kalone McGee -- also were wounded in that shooting at America's Best Value Inn and Suites on Scott Hamilton Drive.
Williams, 24, of North Little Rock and Ralph Waldo Armstrong IV, 26, of Sherwood were subsequently charged with first-degree murder and 10 counts of committing a terroristic act. Separate trials are pending for the men.
Court records show Galburth had been in trouble with the law before, with convictions in Chicot County in 2010 for second-degree battery and possession of weapons by a prison inmate.
In Pulaski County, Galburth had been convicted of first-degree battery and felony theft. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2008 for shooting a man, Kray Brooks, during an armed robbery in April 2007 and for stealing more than $2,500 from another man, Renaldo Foreman, during a March 2008 armed holdup.
Metro on 04/07/2016
*CORRECTION: Kevious Montrell “Keke” Foster, 23, of Little Rock, who was sentenced to 80 years in prison Wednesday in the April 2015 shooting that killed 25-year-old La’Darrius Galburth and wounded his sister, 21-year-old Kentaria Mechelle Banks, will be eligible for parole after serving 20 years. This article incorrectly stated the length of his sentence and parole eligibility.