INDIANAPOLIS — The final suspect in the 2020 quadruple murders was sentenced to 240 years in prison.
Lasean Watkins was sentenced for his role in the death of four people on the northeast side.
He’s one of three suspects convicted of murder, felony murder, and “robbery resulting in serious injury.”
“I feel like a load has been lifted off of me now that it is finally over with,” said one victim’s mother, Kimberly Roberts.
On February 5th, 2020, IMPD officers were called for a shooting on Shady Oak Drive. Officers found the bodies of Braxton Ford, Kimari Hunt, Jalen Roberts, and Marcell Wills.
All four had been shot multiple times. The apartment appeared to have been ransacked and a safe emptied.
“If you saw what I saw was done to my son and other children inside that apartment, that is what you deserve,” said Roberts.
Two other suspects, Cameron Banks and Desmond Banks, were sentenced in late March to 220 years behind bars. Rodreice Anderson was also arrested in connection to the quadruple murder but made a plea deal with investigators. He is facing 35 years in prison.
“It feels like I can breathe now. I actually have put my life on hold for three years until this was over with, I felt like I couldn’t live,” said Roberts.
Jalen Roberts’ mother, Kimberly Roberts, says this final sentencing was the hardest.
“He sat at our dinner table. We fed him. He and Jalen worked together,” said Roberts.
Roberts says she would have never imagined that Watkins would have been capable of killing her son. She says she had a message for him in court.
“I told him the hurt that he took the family through and I just reminded him that he was like family to us,” said Roberts.
She says nobody wins in this situation, but she is thankful justice was served.
“I feel really blessed that I was able to, one, find the killers, and two, get justice,” said Roberts.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears released a statement on the sentences saying, “We must continue to remember the four who lost their lives. As a community, we must all do our part to protect and deter our youth from choosing the dangerous and destructive path of gun violence.”
