Teen guilty in couple’s killing

Kim Smith

Monday, Jan. 15, 2001 | 10:06 a.m.

After just an hour of deliberations, a Clark County jury Friday convicted the second of two Las Vegas teens charged with murdering an elderly couple known for selling candy to neighborhood children.

Deangelo Mitchell, 18, could receive as much as life in prison with no possibility of parole when he is sentenced for the Sept. 23, 1998, deaths of Flora Johnson, 86, and Azel Evans, 71.

Prosecutors believe Mitchell and Shauntay Wheaton went to the elderly couple's home to rob them of the money they earned selling treats to neighborhood children and ended up killing them instead.

Johnson, who was known as the Candy Lady, died from one gunshot wound, and Evans was hit by three bullets.

Wheaton, who was 15 at the time of the slayings, was convicted in December and is awaiting sentencing.

Chief Deputy District Attorney L.J. O'Neale told jurors during opening arguments Tuesday that the boys were seen leaving the crime scene, and finger and foot prints placed Wheaton inside the home.

Both boys also made incriminating statements, O'Neale said.

Mitchell's attorney, Anthony Sgro, told the jurors Wheaton was the shooter and he tried to convince jurors that his client didn't know a robbery was about to take place.

In order to convict someone of murder who is not the alleged shooter, prosecutors must prove that the person had the intent to commit another crime, such as robbery or burglary.