Derald Guess leaves nine children behind because his killer so desperately wanted to join a gang that he was willing to place a gun to the head of the 37-year-old taxi driver and pull the trigger.
Harford County Circuit Court Judge Thomas E. Marshall made sure the only gangs Wayne Lavon Bond Jr. could join will be in prison after sentencing him to life plus 60 years for the 2004 murder of Guess.
Bond, now 18, was found guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and the used of a handgun in the commission of a felony on March 31 for what prosecutors said was rite of passage into the “Bloods” street gang. Bond will be eligible for parole in about 40 years.
“One of the ironies in this case is that Mr. Guess grew up in a very tough south Philadelphia neighborhood and many of his friends and family were killed as a result of gang violence,” said Harford County Deputy State?s Attorney Diana Brooks in her pre-sentence statement.
“There was no reason in the world to kill that man [Guess],” said Brooks, telling Thomas that Guess, who was working as a United Sedan cab driver in that night, cooperated with Bond during the robbery. “Only a person who is cold-blooded could have committed that crime. He is an extreme threat.”
Brooks strengthened her argument by asking Guess? 21-year-old son, Shamaar Guess, to address the court.
“[Guess] was like a really good friend, a mentor. Any problem I had, I would take it to him. He was so many things,” Shamaar Guess said. He told the court of a deeply religious man who was not afraid to go out into the meaner neighborhoods of Edgewood, and try to help young men like bond get away from gangs.
“At first [when Guess was growing up] ? because he didn?t know anything else, he tried to get into that [gang] lifestyle,” Shamaar Guess said of his father, “but he couldn?t get into it.”
