Judge refuses to toss death penalty for 4 charged in deaths of Lexington bystander, unborn son

Four men charged in the 2016 deaths of a woman and her unborn son can get the death penalty, Fayette Circuit Judge Kimberly Bunnell ruled Tuesday.

Defense attorneys for Saquan Freeman, 21, Demetrioun Boaz, 22, Joseph Fain, 21, and Skylar Stigall, 23, had sought to have the death penalty excluded but Bunnell overruled the motion.

“The death penalty as an option for these gentlemen is constitutional,” Bunnell said from the bench. “I think the citizens of Fayette County realize what an ultimate penalty that is.”

The four men were indicted on charges of murder, fetal homicide and robbery in the September 2016 shooting death of Maryiah Coleman, 22. She was not the intended victim of the robbery, police said previously. An innocent bystander, she was walking her family’s dog outside the Matador North Apartments on Winburn Drive when she was shot.

Coleman and her unborn son, Jakobe, died at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital about an hour after the shooting.

The defendants were notified that prosecutors intended to seek aggravated penalties, including the death penalty.

The indictment against the four said Eric Cannady was the intended victim of the robbery. Police said Cannady was being robbed of guns. While all four men had guns, only one weapon was fired.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that a circuit court judge cannot exclude the death penalty as a sentencing option before a trial. Only after the facts are heard at trial and a death sentence is imposed can a circuit judge determine that the death penalty is disproportionate.

Who fired the fatal shot at Coleman has been debated. The defendants gave varying accounts, and the gun that killed Coleman and her son has not been recovered.

Stigall’s attorney, Erica Roland, said he did not even fire his weapon because it was fully loaded when police found it. Roland also said that Stigall never pointed his weapon during the robbery, but Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Andrea Williams said that assertion is disputed by a witness.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has held that while a defendant may not be the shooter in a murder, he can be found guilty of murder under a complicity theory and thus be eligible for the death penalty.

Boaz, Fain and Freeman are scheduled to go on trial in January on first-degree robbery charges in a separate crime. (Stigall was not involved.)

The robbery charges stem from an Oct. 20, 2016, shooting on Red Mile Road. The three men allegedly entered an apartment and fired multiple shots, according to court documents. Freeman was shot by the homeowner and paralyzed during the invasion, police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said previously.

This story was originally published December 11, 2018 at 1:55 PM.