Devon Richardson was only 14 when he fatally shot Janice Letmate, 67, as she walked home from work in September.
On Thursday, Richardson, now 15, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the maximum allowed under a plea deal with Baltimore City prosecutors.
“I thought the judge did the right thing,” said lawyer William Sammons of the Baltimore law firm Tydings & Rosenberg, where Letmate worked as a receptionist. “To call her our receptionist is kind of like calling Michelangelo a sketch artist. Mainly, she was a person who was loved by everybody who knew her. She knew our clients by name. I once told her, ?Janice if you ever retired, we?d have to close the firm, because you?re the most important person here.? We all miss her dearly.”
After Letmate?s Sept. 26 death, Baltimore police Col. Frederick Bealefeld called the act a “senseless tragedy.”
“This case really epitomizes the things that are wrong that we have to deal with,” Bealefeld said. “People will indiscriminately get involved in violence and have weapons available to them.”
Police responded to the scene of the shooting at 6:46 p.m. for a report of a “woman down.”
Police found Letmate lying on the sidewalk, face down, bleeding from the back of her head. She was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore City.
Residents told police they heard “popping” sounds throughout the day that sounded like firecrackers.
A witness identified Richardson from photos as the shooter who killed Letmate, according to charging documents. Richardson pleaded guilty in March.
Police said at the time they believed Richardson?s actions to be intentional, but the boy said the crime was an accident, according to prosecutors. One witness described him as aiming the gun and another described him as holding the gun in her direction when the gun fired, prosecutors said.
