An Arapahoe County jury this week convicted a man of second-degree murder for gunning down a stranger in front of an Aurora sports bar last year.
Donnell Littleton, 28, faces up to 72 years in prison at a sentencing hearing Sept. 5, prosecutors said.
Littleton was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the Jan. 28, 2011 slaying of Trison Mitta, but the jury this week returned the lesser verdict.
Mitta, 26, was killed outside the Sport Station Bar near East Eighth Avenue and Dayton Street in what police later said was an unprovoked attack by Littleton.
A few days after the slaying, police said surveillance cameras recorded the shooting and showed several witnesses that saw what happened. Media coverage of the murder and a news conference with Mitta’s father helped crack the case, police said, and after the coverage, a witness came forward and spoke to investigators.
According to testimony at Littleton’s preliminary hearing last year, Mitta walked out of the bar that night and saw short man in a blue plaid jacket. Mitta didn’t know the man, police said, but he greeted him anyway.
“What’s up?” Mitta said as he walked past the man and a few other people milling about near the bar’s entrance.
“This is what’s up,” the man replied as he took a step back and pulled out a pistol, shooting Mitta once in the chest. Mitta stumbled into the bar and later died. The short man in plaid ran away.
And that was it, police said.
No confrontation, no raised voices, no history whatsoever between the two men.
Prosecutors said Mitta may have bumped into Littleton as he walked by.
Police say the man in the plaid shirt that night was Littleton. He was arrested a few days after the shooting and has been held without bond in the Arapahoe County jail since.
“Trison Mitta didn’t do or say anything to cause this to happen to him,” Aurora police Detective Gretchen Fronapfel said during Littleton’s preliminary hearing last year.
Some of Littleton’s friends who went out with him that night told police Littleton tried to enter Sport Station earlier in the evening but the bouncer wouldn’t let him because Littleton didn’t have an ID.
Littleton was upset about not getting in and acting strangely the rest of the night, the friends told police.
Littleton has been arrested several times in Colorado on charges including sexual assault, menacing, assault and weapons offenses, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
What did he get at the sentencing?