PEORIA, Ill. – A man has been sentenced to multiple decades in prison for a 2022 shooting that killed a teenager near the former Quest Charter Academy.
The Peoria County State’s Attorney’s Office says 21-year-old Erick Jackson was sentenced to 80 years after being found guilty in September of First Degree Murder and Aggravated Battery with a Firearm. He was sentenced to 70 years on the murder charge, and 10 years for the battery charge, of which they will be served one after the other.
Peoria Police responded to 21 shots fired near Quest on November 7th, 2022, finding two gunshot victims.
15-year-old Merian Smith was found in the backyard of a residence with a gunshot wound to the head and later pronounced dead. A second victim suffered non-life-threatening injuries from a gunshot wound.
Prosecutors say surveillance footage showed three males running past a garage near the time of the shooting and touching a garage, with Jackson identified through fingerprint testing.
A search warrant at Jackson’s home led officers to finding a firearm and shell casings recovered from the shooting scene matched the firearm.
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