Teen convicted in couple’s killing

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2000 | 10:45 a.m.

Flora Scharnett has a message for the 17-year-old boy who was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the death of her mother and stepfather.

"I'd tell him I no longer hold malice and rage and hate in my heart and that as a human being I find love for him," Scharnett said minutes after Shauntay Wheaton found out he is headed for prison.

"I pray for he and his family that the blessings of God will be upon them even through all of this."

A jury of eight women and four men deliberated more than four hours Monday before convicting Wheaton of shooting Flora Johnson, 86, and Azel Evans, 71, to death on Sept. 23, 1998.

District Judge Lee Gates will sentence Wheaton on Feb. 6. He faces life with or without the possibility of parole or a 20- to 50-year prison sentence on the murder convictions, plus decades more on robbery and burglary charges.

Prosecutors alleged that Wheaton, who had just turned 15, and Deangelo Mitchell, 16, went to the elderly couple's home to rob them of the money they earned selling candy, pop and ice cream to neighborhood children.

Instead, the couple were shot to death. Johnson, who was known as the "Candy Lady," died from one gunshot wound and Evans was struck four times by three bullets.

The boys were seen leaving the house by a neighbor, and police found Wheaton's bloody footprints in the kitchen.

Wheaton told police he and Mitchell never intended for anyone to die, they only went to the home to rob the couple of a "few bucks."

During his closing arguments, defense attorney Chip Siegel emphasized the conditions under which the boy confessed. He was without his mother or an attorney in a 40-square-foot room with a manipulative 6-foot-tall detective and his co-defendant was within hearing distance in a room next door.

"He was chained to the ground like an animal, an animal that will chew its limb off in order to survive," Siegel said.

Chief Deputy District Attorney L.J. O'Neale reminded jurors that Wheaton voluntarily gave up his right to have an attorney present during questioning.

While the defense wants them to think of the boy as a "scared 15-year-old," O'Neale said there is no evidence the boy got scared until he ended up at the jail.

In his statements to police, O'Neale said, Wheaton came across as cocky at times, at one point daring the police to check for his fingerprints at the scene.

Wheaton's demeanor changed when he was being fingerprinted at the jail, however.

O'Neale told the jurors that Wheaton began crying and confessed "I didn't want them to tell on me, so I shot them."

A child doesn't pick up a gun and start firing away, O'Neale said.