(SHELBY COUNTY D.A. RELEASE) – A 22-year-old man convicted last month in the drive-by shooting death of a teenage girl on a Downtown street corner was sentenced Thursday to life in prison plus 31 years, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.
Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee sentenced defendant Kwasi Corbin to life in prison for first-degree murder, 25 years for attempted first-degree murder for wounding another person and 6 years for employment of a firearm with intent to commit a dangerous felony.
The judge ordered that the three sentences be served consecutively.
A jury last month deliberated just over an hour before convicting Corbin of killing 18-year-old Myneishia Johnson as she walked with friends on Second Street just north of Peabody Place at around 12:30 a.m. on May 22, 2016.
Witnesses said Corbin pulled up to a stoplight, lowered the driver’s side window and began shooting into the crowd with a rifle.
Johnson was killed, while a 19-year-old man was wounded in the buttocks.
Corbin drove away at a high rate of speed, leading police on a chase down Union Avenue, then south on I-240 and then to I-55 near South Third where his car crashed and officers arrested him. He discarded the rifle during the chase, but police recovered it near the interstate ramp.
The case was handled by Chief Prosecutor Alanda Dwyer and Asst. Dist. Atty. Kevin McAlpin of the DA’s Special Prosecution Unit which seeks maximum sentencing for repeat felony offenders.