A Houston, Texas, man will spend the next 50 years behind bars for shooting a complete stranger 15 times and killing him in 2021.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office said around 9:30 a.m. Sept. 14, 2021, Elijah Malik Kaluanya, 27, drove a white Mercedes-Benz sedan to a convenience store near Greenspoint in north Houston.
Nearly 30 minutes later, 34-year-old Demrick Thomas pulled up to the convenience store and parked next to Kaluanya. When Thomas exited his vehicle, Kaluanya accused him of dinging the door to the Mercedes.
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Both men argued about the ding, when Kaluanya pulled out a pistol and shot Thomas 15 times before leaving the scene and continuing with his errands, the DA’s office said. One of the errands included buying an alternator for his vehicle from an auto parts store.
Emergency crews tended to Thomas and transported him to an area hospital where he died from his wounds.
Detectives with the Houston Police Department reviewed surveillance footage from the convenience store, which showed Thomas never dinged Kaluanya’s vehicle.
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The footage also helped detectives identify Kaluanya, which led to his arrest.
Last week, a Harris County jury convicted Kaluanya of murder after a four-day trial.
The convicted murderer chose to have District Judge Andrea Beall decide his punishment, and Kaluanya was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
“Shooting someone 15 times over an argument about a car is an absolutely senseless and pointless murder, and this happened in broad daylight,” Ogg said. “Gun violence is never the right way to settle a dispute, and our hearts go out to the victim’s friends and family.”
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