A 22-year-old man who killed a woman last year at his 2-year-old son’s birthday party at a North Little Rock pizza restaurant has accepted a 50-year prison sentence, the maximum penalty short of a life sentence.
Sentencing papers filed last week show Marlon Shawn Marbley Jr. of Little Rock pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for the 50-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.
Under the terms of his plea agreement, negotiated by deputy prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill and defense attorney Jimmy Morris, the charge was reduced from capital murder. Marbley, who has no prior felonies, will have to serve 38 years before he can qualify for parole.
The victim, 32-year-old Christina Nicole Clay of Pine Bluff, was the wife of 21-year-old Ebony Nicole Curry of Little Rock, the mother of Marbley’s son. They were all attending a March 2021 birthday for the toddler at the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant on Landers Road in North Little Rock when Marbley shot and killed Clay.