Defendant Pleads Guilty in Violent Crime Spree

May 10, 2022 – A man scheduled to be tried this week for his involvement in a violent crime spree in 2018 pled guilty Tuesday to felony charges of murder, robbery and carjacking, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Defendant Marcus Brown was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility for parole for second-degree murder, especially aggravated robbery, and carjacking.

Three co-defendants, including one who was 14 at the time, are awaiting trial.

The two-day spree began shortly after 4 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2018, when a 55-year-old woman was shot in the face and robbed by a group of men as she arrived for work at a business in the 3800 block of South Mendenhall.

About an hour later, a 68-year-old man returning home from work was carjacked in his driveway on South Cox in the Cooper-Young neighborhood by two suspects armed with a handgun and an assault rifle.

The third incident occurred shortly before 1 a.m. on Nov. 30, 2018, at a service station in the 3600 block of Summer Avenue just east of Highland. Two vehicles, including the two-door vehicle carjacked the previous night, blocked the pickup truck of a customer who had pulled up to a pump.

As two gunmen got out and approached him, the pickup truck driver, Xavier Shotwell, 48, of Cordova, tried to drive away to safety. The gunmen opened fire, however, and killed him.

The vehicle from the carjacking was found a short time later, burning nearby at Highland and Orchi. About an hour later, Brown and the other suspects were arrested at Lamar and Kerr after they were stopped in a vehicle used during the crime spree.

The case this week was handled by Chief Prosecutor Theresa McCusker and Asst. Dist. Atty. Regina Lucreziano of the District Attorney’s Vertical Team 1 which prosecutes cases in General Sessions Division 7 (Veteran’s Court) and in Criminal Court Division 1.