A D.C. man who had hopes of moving him and his four sons out of the region will instead spend the next 25 years behind bars after he was sentenced for a murder described as both “brazen” and “absurd” by a Prince George’s County, Maryland, judge.
In August of 2022, 20-year-old Darrion Herring was shot to death in the food court at the Mall at Prince George’s in Hyattsville. It took 49 days before his killer, 34-year-old Stephon Jones was arrested.
Earlier this summer, Jones pleaded guilty to second degree murder charges as part of an effort, he told the court, to spare Herring’s loved ones from suffering through a trial.
On the afternoon of Aug. 18, Herring, who worked with those with special needs and aspired to become a D.C. firefighter, was helping a blind man do some shopping at the mall when he got in an altercation with Jones in the bathroom about whether Herring had given Jones “some kind of look.”
Later that afternoon as Herring walked through the food court with his stepfather, Jones spotted him and after a brief altercation, shot Herring in the chest four times. He then fled the state with his girlfriend to Philadelphia and later changed his appearance.
Jones did that because he was scared, explained his attorney, Allison Heldreth. He was scared of Herring — who he didn’t know, and couldn’t be sure didn’t have a gun too — and then was scared of the justice system and the consequences for his family, she explained, as part of an effort to get Jones a sentence on the lowest end of the sentencing guidelines.
In particular, she told Judge Michael Pearson the “state has it wrong” to portray Jones as a “random, violent monster.” Heldreth claimed his “track record shows he’s not.”
At the time of the shooting, Jones had a near spotless record. She also noted that Jones didn’t have anyone in the courtroom on his behalf because he didn’t want to upset Herring’s family.
Sentencing guidelines called for a punishment of 18-25 years for second degree murder, and she suggested that by not fighting for a conviction on voluntary manslaughter charges instead, this represented a “true compromise.”
But, Assistant State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County Nicholas Leonardi took a different approach, saying Jones intentionally killed Herring “due to ego” and should get the strictest sentence he possibly could.
From that point on, he said Jones “consistently chose to do wrong,” and replayed surveillance video showing the crime to the court.
Emotions ran high when Herring’s mother, April, spoke.
Describing her son as, “a beautiful person with an infectious personality,” she said the crime has rocked her family, but that the impact has been the hardest on her now 7-year-old son. She said instead of playing doctor with his stuffed animals the way most boys do, her son now plays funeral director.
“He deals with some depression, some anxiety, and he’s in grief counseling weekly as a result of this act,” she said about Darrion’s younger brother after the sentencing was over.
Jones also addressed the court, expressing remorse, but also stated, “I’m a good person … good father.”
In his words, “things went wrong” that afternoon. “I’ve got to live with this decision. At the end of the day, I am very sorry to the whole family.”
As his unscripted statement went on, some sitting on the Herring’s side started getting agitated, with one man sitting in the front row jumping up and calling Jones a “coward a** piece of sh*t” before leaving the courtroom.
“I make nothing of what he said,” Herring’s mother told WTOP after the hearing, adding she didn’t believe Jones when he said he was sorry for what happened.
“This was such a senseless act, and when you shoot and kill someone for simply looking at you, there are no words to justify those actions,” she said.
Judge Pearson seemed to feel the same way.
“This entire ordeal stemmed from the way someone was looking at you,” Pearson said with disgust in his voice. “The absurdity of that statement I just made is shocking. ‘Senseless’ does not do justice to what took place.”
Noting how many other innocent people were in the mall at the time and citing the video that showed a mad rush fleeing the mall when the shots rang out, Pearson said, “for your reaction to escalate to the level it did as quickly as it did is really shocking.”
He questioned how law-abiding and good hearted Jones could be if he was also walking around the shopping mall with a loaded and unregistered handgun.
Pearson then sentenced Jones to the maximum 40 years in prison, with 15 of those suspended, for essentially a 25-year sentence. Jones also got seven years for the use of a firearm to commit a felony, which he’ll serve concurrently.
“The result is not necessarily justice,” said Herring’s mother afterward. “However, I am satisfied with the outcome here since the judge sentenced him to the maximum which was possible.”
