Days before start of Antioch murder trial, two men take plea deal with decades in prison
Demario Brown, 29, and Vernon Louisville, 48, accepted plea deals in the killing of Joseph Lee Garrison.
MARTINEZ — Days before they were to go on trial facing a murder charges, two Bay Area men have taken plea deals in the killing of a 35-year-old man shot and killed in 2019 in Antioch, court records show.
Demario Brown, 29, and Vernon Louisville, 48, both pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the 11:40 p.m. Dec. 4 killing of Joseph Lee Garrison, who was fatally shot in the 2100 block of Peppertree Way near Lemontree Way in Antioch. Brown will be formally sentenced to 21 years and nine months while Louisville will be sentenced to 27 years, according to the deal.
In exchange, prosecutors dropped a murder charge against both men.
Authorities alleged that both men participated in the shooting. Brown shot Garrison multiple times after Garrison walked by both defendants, and that Louisville then walked up shot him one final time in the head, according to prosecutors.
The motive is believed to be a dispute over drug turf, since both defendants were suspected of selling drugs in the neighborhood of the shooting, authorities said.
Louisville and Brown had been scheduled to go on trial this month, but opted for the plea deal instead.
Louisville was arrested a day after the shooting in Vallejo, after a short chase that involved the use of a police dog. Brown turned himself into police after shortly investigators served a search warrant at residences in Antioch and Pittsburg, authorities said at the time.
Five months before the shooting, Louisville had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder in Richmond but prosecutors declined to charge him, citing a lack of evidence.