A Sherwood man has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for killing a transgender teen in what authorities say was an attempt to cover up their relationship.
The June 2020 killing of Braylen Stone, who went by Brayla, three weeks after Stone had turned 17 drew national attention as part of a wave of violence against transgender people that the American Medical Association described as an "epidemic."
Sentencing papers filed Thursday describe Trevone Hayse Miller’s motivation to kill Stone, showing that Miller pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, in exchange for the 50-year sentence imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims.
Miller has been jailed since his arrest about a week after Stone’s body was found parked in a vehicle near a walking path off Gap Creek Drive in Sherwood. Miller, who turned 20 last week, will have to serve 35 years before he can qualify for parole.
Stone’s slaying was the second time Miller has been implicated in the murder of a teenager in Sherwood.
In April 2016, Miller was 14 and the youngest of three teens charged with capital murder in the slaying of Bryan Allen Thompson, 17, who was killed in the parking lot of the Bill Harmon Recreation Center. Thompson was found dead, shot in the throat, behind the wheel of his car by a rec center worker.
In October 2016, Miller made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to aggravated robbery in juvenile court and testify against his co-defendants in exchange for dropping the capital-murder charge against him.
Miller never had to testify. His co-defendants, Quincy Parks of Sherwood, then 15, and Xavier Terrell Porter of North Little Rock, who was 17, pleaded guilty eight months later.
Authorities identified Porter as the killer based on Miller’s statement to police and surveillance video from the Shelby Road rec center.