(SHELBY COUNTY D.A. NEWS RELEASE) – A 20-year-old man wasconvicted Friday on first-degree murder and other felony offenses for theabduction and assault of a couple in 2017 that began near New Willow Road andCherry Road, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.
A Criminal Court jury convicted defendant Kevvon Clark ofpremeditated first-degree murder, murder in the perpetration of kidnapping, twocounts of especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape and aggravatedrobbery.
He will automatically receive sentences of life in prison for themurder convictions, and will be sentenced on the other convictions on March 4by Judge Paula Skahan.
The incident began on the afternoon of March 30, 2017, when LuisSantiago, 39, and his wife were robbed and abducted by Clark, then 17, andanother man in the 4000 block of New Willow Road in southeast Memphis. Aninvestigation showed that while in the vehicle, Santiago’s pickup truck, Clarkforced the woman to perform a sex act on his codefendant.
She managed to escape by jumping from the vehicle at Getwell Roadand Winchester Road, where she flagged down a motorist who took her to theRaines Station Police Precinct. Officers searched the area for her husband andhis abductors, and the following day they found his body near his pickup truckin a remote area on Old Getwell Road not far from where his wife had escaped.
Luis Santiago’s hands were bound and he had been shot in the backof the head.
Clark’s codefendant, Jermarcus Thomas, 22, also faces charges forhis role in the crime and is scheduled to be in court on Feb. 5.
The case was handled by Chief Prosecutor Eric Christensen andAsst. Dist. Atty. Dru Carpenter of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit(SVU) which prosecutes cases of child sexual abuse and severe physical abuse ofchild victims; rape and aggravated rape of adult victims, and abuse of elderlyand vulnerable adults.
