INDIANAPOLIS — Jeri Radcliff can’t help but wonder that if somebody would have been tracking down her son’s eventual killer in late 2020 and early 2021, her boy might be alive today.
”Tavon Macklin, the one who shot my son, he cut off his ankle bracelet in December, nobody was out looking for him,” Radcliff said. “Maybe if they would have, my son would still be here.”
Macklin was found in violation of his home detention, finishing up a 2016 armed robbery conviction, when he was on the loose to cut a murderous swath across Indianapolis in winter 2021.
His first victim was Jeri’s son, Justin White, on Jan. 17, 2021.
“He was on his way home from work,” said Radcliff. “Stopped at a gas station to pick up something, and they were trying to rob him and the two guys shot him. He didn’t have a chance.”
A few days later, IMPD homicide detectives released photographs from convenience store security camera video. The photos showed Macklin and his partner, John Ziegler, at the scene of White’s murder.
”As soon as they did, we got dings left and right, they knew who they were, recognizing them by their clothes and things like that and getting tips on who they were,” said Radcliff. “And I was feeding them to the detective every time.”
IMPD homicide detectives knew who they were looking for, and one told FOX59/CBS4 that Macklin warned that, if confronted by the police, he wouldn’t be taken alive.
A month later, as officers searched for Macklin, he killed a business owner on West 38th Street.
Two days after that, Macklin got into a shootout with IMPD detectives in the 3300 block of Forest Manor Avenue.
Macklin was wounded in the shootout and his murder weapon was recovered.
Last fall, Macklin was sentenced to 58 years in prison for the February 2021 murder of the business owner.
He’s already serving time for gun and robbery convictions and faces sentencing March 28th for the murder of Justin White.
Radcliff has followed the case of her son’s killer from the start, sitting in the courtroom every day for testimony.
She’ll have an opportunity to address the court and the man who took her son’s life at sentencing.
”I knew I couldn’t put Justin’s behind me until we went to trial and they were convicted and put behind bars forever, I hope,” she said. ”I tried to go to counseling for Justin, but I knew that once I was in it, it wasn’t working because I knew it wasn’t done, it wasn’t over with because once I went to trial, I was going to have to relive that all over again.”
Macklin will face at least 40 additional years in prison for the White killing.
Ziegler has already pleaded guilty of White’s murder.
