GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Guilty verdicts in three Grand Rapids murder cases were returned over the span of seven days, including a conviction on Thursday for Quinn James in the strangulation death of a teen who accused him of rape.
“It’s kind of unusual to have three cases of this magnitude all happen within a two-week period,’’ said Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker. “To get three convictions in that short a period of time is something we are very pleased with.’’
The first conviction came on Friday, Feb. 22 when a Kent County jury found Deandre Lamar-Dante Johnson guilty of second-degree murder for a shooting in October of 2017.
The victim, 22-year-old Daran Adams-Jackson Jr., was shot multiple times at Cambridge Square apartments on the city’s Northeast Side. Johnson, 21, faces up to life in prison when he returns to court for sentencing in mid-March.
In the second case, jurors found 23-year-old Vicente Rodriguez Ortiz guilty of killing a teenager a year ago on the city’s Northwest Side.
Jurors deliberated for about 30 minutes on Thursday, Feb. 28 before convicting him of first-degree murder in the death of Andre Lamont Hawkins, 17.
The victim was shot on Jan. 23, 2018 while sitting in a car with a friend outside a home on Second Street just west of Pine Avenue NW. Ortiz was arrested the next day. He faces mandatory life in prison when he returns to Kent County Circuit Court for sentencing in April.
Also on Thursday, 43-year-old Quinn James was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Mujey Dumbuya. Investigators say he killed the East Kentwood High School student to keep her from testifying against him in a rape trial.
James in December was sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting Dumbuya in 2017. He now is facing mandatory life in prison for her January, 2018 murder. James will be sentenced on March 25.
Becker said the convictions of Johnson and Ortiz “didn’t make the headlines, but a tremendous amount of work went into securing guilty verdicts in these cases as well.’’
“It was a very intense two weeks and we’re very happy that we got the results that we did,’’ Becker added.
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