{"id":1176,"date":"2012-06-08T19:07:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T23:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2012-06-08T19:07:09","modified_gmt":"2012-06-08T23:07:09","slug":"city-man-convicted-of-first-degree-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1176","title":{"rendered":"City man convicted of first-degree murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jury identifies Dante Lawrence as triggerman in 2010 fatal shooting<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/span><\/strong>, Managing Editor, CoatesvilleTimes.com<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dante L. Lawrence was found guilty of first-degree murder.<\/p><\/div>\n

WEST CHESTER \u2014 After more than four hours of deliberations, a Chester County Court jury Friday evening found a Coatesville resident guilty of first-degree murder.<\/p>\n

The panel of four men and eight women convicted Dante L. Lawrence, 30, of fatally shooting Randy M. Vaughn, 31, in the 200 block of Diamond Street on Jan. 5, 2010. The conviction carries an automatic life sentence.<\/p>\n

During closing arguments, Lawrence\u2019s attorney, Michael J. Skinner, insisted the evidence pointed to Shamaur Hall, who was with Lawrence in the SUV witnesses described as speeding from the homicide scene. \u201cDante Lawrence did not commit this crime,\u201d Skinner said.<\/p>\n

But Assistant District Attorney Carlos A. Barraza countered that Hall \u201chad no motive.\u201d He got involved because Lawrence, who was a close friend, gave him a sketchy description of someone who had just tried to break into Lawrence\u2019s Chester Avenue residence, Barraza said.<\/p>\n

Lawrence testified on Thursday that Hall saw someone matching the description at the nearby Midway bar, and then came and picked up Lawrence so he could verify the man\u2019s identity. By the time the pair returned to the bar, the man was gone, Lawrence testified. Minutes later, Hall pointed to someone on Diamond Street, identifying him as the suspect, Lawrence said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Shamaur to go back around the block,\u201d Lawrence testified, adding that Hall did that, stopped the vehicle, got out, and approached Vaughn, who tried to run. Hall grabbed him and he fell right before Hall shot him, Lawrence testified, his voice cracking. \u201cI just wanted to get out of there, man,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know that was going to happen to that boy …\u201d Hall testified that it was Lawrence who jumped out of the car and fired several shots.<\/p>\n

U.S. Marshals apprehended Lawrence near Atlanta seven months after the shooting. Skinner said Lawrence had planned to turn himself in but wanted to get money to secure an attorney first; Barraza said he was trying to evade authorities.<\/p>\n

Lawrence, whose criminal history includes a guilty plea to drug charges in 2001, was also convicted of illegal firearms possession. He will be sentenced at a later date by Senior Judge Thomas G. Gavin, who presided over the week-long trial.<\/p>\n

“The city of Coatesville is a safer place today because this murderer will spend the rest of his life in prison,” said Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan, calling the conviction a team effort led by Barraza that included the Coatesville Police Department and the Chester County Detectives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jury identifies Dante Lawrence as triggerman in 2010 fatal shooting By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, CoatesvilleTimes.com WEST CHESTER \u2014 After more than four hours of deliberations, a Chester County Court jury Friday evening found a Coatesville resident guilty of first-degree murder. The panel of four men and eight women convicted Dante L. Lawrence, 30, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[370,24,369,367,368,371],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-chester-county-detectives","tag-coatesville","tag-firearms","tag-first-degree-murder","tag-senior-judge-thomas-g-gavin","tag-tom-hogan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}