AURORA | An Aurora teenager who fatally shot a man in the face and later dumped his body on the side of a mountain road following a botched marijuana sale has been sentenced to nearly five decades in state prison.
An Arapahoe County judge this week sentenced Xavion Johnson, 17, to 48 years of detention for the shooting death of 24-year-old Gayland Allen Jr. two years ago.
Prosecutors with the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said a group of four teenagers
met Allen in Aurora on Dec. 28, 2019 to buy marijuana from him. When Allen got into the teens’ car to carry out the transaction, Johnson aimed a gun at Allen’s head and shot him one time, according to information released by the DA’s office.
“(Johnson) took a gun, aimed it at (Allen’s) face and fired one bullet,” Judge Darren Vahle said at the May 17 sentencing hearing. “Everyone knows that will cause death.”
Johnson then instructed the group to drive to Lookout Mountain, where he dumped Allen’s body over a guardrail. After being reported missing on Dec. 30, 2019, his cadaver was found on the side of a Jefferson County road on New Years Day.
Three of the teens who were in the car when Allen was killed were arrested in Denver on suspicion of shoplifting shortly after the shooting. They were found with a stolen car, and linked to the shooting shortly thereafter, authorities said.
The juveniles who were with Johnson at the time of the killing later told police that Johnson was distressed because his cousin, 17-year-old Nathan Poindexter, had been shot and killed inside the Town Center at Aurora mall the day before.
Johnson’s confederates told authorities that the teen told them “I’m going to catch a body tonight, and I don’t care who it is,” according to a spokesperson for the DA’s office.
“The defendant was just looking for someone to murder – it was completely senseless,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Andrew Steers said in a statement.
Kamyl Garrette was later charged in connection with the shooting death of Poindexter inside a J.C. Penney store on Dec. 27, 2019. Garrette, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, remains jailed at the Arapahoe County detention center without bond awaiting an upcoming court date in November, county records show.
All of the teens who were in the car when Allen was killed have been charged in connection with his death, prosecutors said. Two of them have already been sentenced as juveniles, and another is awaiting sentencing later this summer.
Johnson, who was 16 at the time of Allen’s murder, was charged in adult court. He pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge earlier this month in exchange for other counts filed against him getting dismissed.
The sentenced handed down to Johnson Monday was the second this month related to a bungled black-market marijuana sale in Aurora. Jahlil Meshesha, 21, was sentenced to 30 years in prison May 11 for the shooting death of 24-year-old Jahmar Leckman in an Aurora parking lot five years ago. Authorities said Meshesha and Prince White both shot Leckman, who was planning on selling marijuana to an acquaintance in the area.
District Attorney John Kellner has condemned the rash of drug-related violence.
“Yet again we see illegal drugs playing a part in senseless violence,” he said in a statement.
Johnson has been entered into the Colorado Department of Corrections system, though he remains in jail awaiting transfer to a state prison, records show.
Hopefully the coward will be too.ld to harm anyonelse if he lives to get out of prison.