Let us read it for you. Listen now. Your browser does not support the audio element.

Devin DeSean Jones had been having trouble sleeping the night he was killed, so he stepped out to have a cigarette.

It was the middle of the night, and the 27-year-old father of five had a lot on his mind. His two-week-old twins had been born prematurely about a month ahead of schedule and both were in Arkansas Children's Hospital neonatal intensive care unit. Otherwise Jones would have been home in Forrest City with his children and not in Little Rock.

But the Jones family had been given a place nearby to stay, the Ronald McDonald House at 1501 W. 10th St., which provides free housing for parents in their situation so the family could be close to the babies, both suffering severe disabilities that affect them to this day. One of the children was undergoing surgery on Friday.

Shortly before 3 a.m., June 16, 2023, Devin Jones left the building to make his way to the facility's designated smoking area. His last few minutes alive were captured on flickering surveillance video, some in color, some in black and white, that shows him walking and looking at his phone until he stops under a street light.

Behind him, a car pulls into view, the light from its headlights trailing across the recording until it stops several feet away. Shown in black and white and recorded on a motion-activated camera, his killer is a barely seen wisp by the car.

Jones, however, can be distinctly seen as he stumbles, fatally wounded, across the street before collapsing in the back driveway of the Ronald McDonald House as his killer, still ghostly on camera, runs to the car and it leaves. A few minutes later, a mysterious figure can be seen walking up to Jones and briefly rifling through his pockets before walking away. Police didn't know that Jones was dead until someone driving by saw his body and called 911.

That was the scenario laid out in words and pictures Friday for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Melanie Martin by deputy prosecutor Rafael Gallaher at the sentencing hearing for the killer's mother, 36-year-old Karisha Latriece Grisby. The Little Rock mother of four pleaded to second-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, in February after admitting to driving her son from the murder scene.

Prosecutors asked for 45 years in prison, the maximum available since a firearm was used in the killing. Grisby's lawyers called for the minimum punishment of six years, painting Grisby, who did not testify, as a struggling single mother who always put her children first but whose life was made more difficult by their developmental difficulties and their fathers' lack of support financially and emotionally.

Grisby was further struggling with life as a survivor of domestic violence who still carries a bullet in her chest eight years after being shot by her wife in August 2016, public defenders Allan Jones and Jessica Escalante told the judge. The attorneys asked the judge for leniency given that Grisby had surrendered both herself and her son after learning they were wanted by police, with both confessing to the killing.

With the defense and prosecution at odds over Grisby's exact role in the slaying, Martin imposed a sentence of 35 years, stating that Grisby had "enabled" her son to kill Jones, even if her involvement had only been to carry the teen away from the murder scene.

"She provided the tools for that (murder) to happen," Martin said.

Andre Westbrook, Grisby's son, was 16 when Devin Jones was killed. Prosecutors charged him as an adult but his case was transferred to juvenile court over objections by Martin's predecessor, Cathi Compton. He turns 18 on Saturday.

Under the extended juvenile-justice law, Westbrook faces at least three years on probation once he turns 21. If he's not deemed rehabilitated by that age, Westbrook could also be sentenced to prison.

Police were able to link the killing to Grisby through the license plates on her car.

Jones' murder is the story of two parents, Gallaher told the judge, one a father doing "everything right, working to support his family, to take care of his children," the other is a mother who took her "impressionable" teenage son to "hunt" a victim," then targeted the first person they came across that night.

The prosecutor emphasized his description of mother and son stalking a victim with security showing the Grisby car driving around the dark and empty streets by the hospital before coming across Jones. At worst, Grisby commanded her son to attack Jones, while at best, she allowed it to happen, the prosecutor said.

Grisby's lawyers pushed back at that characterization, saying what Grisby was doing while driving around was looking for her son to bring him home. There's no evidence that she knew what her son was going to do, they told the judge.

Police were able to link the murder to Grisby through the shell casings found at the scene. They matched the casings to those found a few days earlier during an investigation of gunfire at Grisby's home. The license plates on the car Jones' murderer left in were also a match for Grisby's plates.

Investigators tracked down the car about a week later and took Grisby into custody for questioning.

She initially denied any involvement in the killing, telling police that she'd been at home that night but had rented her car to someone named "BJ."

She changed her story when police showed her that there had been two people in the car that night, the killer and the driver.

Grisby admitted she had been driving BJ that night, stating that someone had broken into her home that night and they were out looking for the burglar.

She told investigators that when she and BJ came across Jones on the street, BJ told her to let him out because he needed to talk to Jones.

BJ walked up to Jones, she said, describing how she next heard gunshots followed by BJ who got back into the car before she drove them away.

Grisby further elaborated that there had been a third person in the vehicle with them, a man called "Bro" who told her "dead witnesses don't talk" while BJ told her to keep quiet.

Grisby was released until police could get an arrest warrant. She and her son moved to her sister's home in San Antonio, Texas, where she surrendered to authorities after learning she was wanted for capital murder.

It was when Grisby was being taken into custody in Texas about a month after the killing that Westbrook told police that he had been with his mother that night.

Westbrook said they were looking for whomever had broken into their home that night when they came across Jones behind the Ronald McDonald House. Westbrook said that Jones started to run when Westbrook approached him, stating that he then opened fire on the older man, shooting Jones at least five times during the encounter. Jones fell down, Westbrook told police, stating that he ran back to his mother's car and they left the area.

Testifying Friday, Jones' mother told the judge about her last conversion with her "baby boy" hours before he was killed.

Sharon Jones said she'd texted her "baby boy" that day because she had a premonition that she needed to talk to him.

"I had an eerie feeling," she explained. "I just had to talk to him that day."

Recalling her son as a man whose smile could light up a room and a proud father who worked hard to support his children, Jones said her son also seemed to have had a feeling his time was running out.

In that last phone call, she said he urged her to "hold your head up," saying that he needed to be strong in the coming days.

Devin Jones further called her an "awesome mother," she said, saying that she'd been privileged to be his mother and that she was grateful to God for letting her have him for 27 years.