Defendant Sentenced to Six Years for Fatally Shooting Eight-Year-Old Brother

By Andrew Michaels - August 27, 2023
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

The sound of 18-year-old Devin Wilson’s rattling chains echoed throughout a Baltimore City Circuit courtroom on Aug. 25 as the defendant’s mother tearfully asked the judge for her son to serve a decade behind bars for the murder of his eight-year-old brother, Dylan King, last December.

Sitting at the counsel table with his defense attorney, Brian Murphy, Wilson anxiously shook his chained legs while waiting to accept the prosecutor’s plea offer of 10 years, suspending all but six years, and five years of supervised probation for involuntary manslaughter.

“This never should have happened,” the prosecutor told Judge John Addison Howard, describing the tragedy behind King’s death.

Officers with the Baltimore Police Department were called to the family’s residence on the 2100 block of Presbury Street around 5:11 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2022, for a reported shooting. According to the prosecution, police arrived to find a neighbor performing CPR on King in an upstairs bedroom. About 15 to 20 minutes later, an officer heard what he believed to be sobbing coming from another bedroom and found the defendant holding shotgun to his forehead.

The officer was able to diffuse the situation and Wilson was arrested and charged with King’s murder on Jan. 17. In addition to involuntary manslaughter, Wilson was also charged with second-degree murder, firearm use in a felony or violent crime and committing an act of violence in front of minors.

No adults were home at the time of the incident; however, the defendant was home and watching his younger siblings, including King and three others, ages two, three and five. Police also learned that Wilson had called his mother and told her that King “accidentally shot him.”

The assistant state’s attorney told Judge Howard that the prosecution and the victim’s parents were unable to agree on the stipulations of the plea offer. During her impact statement, Wilson and King’s mother requested her son be sentenced to 20 years, specifically, 10 years incarceration and 10 years of supervised probation.

“There’s never gonna be justice because I’m never getting him back,” she said. “Devin made it to 18. Dylan never made it to 18.”

The prosecutor explained that evidence in the case “fully supports” the plea. He also acknowledged that after listening to hours of the defendant’s phone conversations in jail, other members of the defendant and victim’s family tried to “diminish what [Wilson did].”

“All of those conversations were wrong. He did it,” the prosecutor argued.

Wilson’s grandmother and aunt, who sat on the opposite side of the courtroom’s gallery, spoke highly of the defendant, saying he would have never intentionally harmed any of his siblings.

“Devin is like my big teddy bear,” his aunt said. “He is a loving child and he did help with those children.”

“I cannot imagine a worse tragedy,” Judge Howard said before accepting the plea and imposing Wilson’s sentence. “There’s, unfortunately, no way to fix what happened.”

In addition to his six years incarceration, the defendant must also undergo a mental health test and screening. He declined any alcohol and drug treatment.