Prosecutors drop first-degree murder charges after K Street shooting jury deadlocks
Sacramento County prosecutors on Thursday dismissed first-degree murder charges against the surviving suspects in 2022’s K Street mass shootings that left three women dead after jurors deadlocked on the charges, a source familiar with the case told The Sacramento Bee.
Jurors announced the impasse 2:30 p.m. Thursday, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the trial.
Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and trial prosecutors Brad Ng and Megan Eixenberger then dismissed the first-degree murder charges against Mtula Payton and Dandrae Martin in the shooting deaths of Yamile Martinez, 21; Johntaya Alexander, 21; and Melinda Davis, 57, in the seconds after 2 a.m., April 3, 2022, according to the source.
With the Thursday deadlock, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman sent jurors home. The panel returns Tuesday morning to resume deliberations. Jurors will decide whether Payton and Martin are guilty of second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter in the women’s deaths; or if they will be found innocent of criminal charges out of self-defense.
Without a first-degree verdict, the possibility of life sentences without parole for the two men has been eliminated. The two each now face 15 years to life in state prison, if convicted of second-degree murder; or a lesser sentence of up to 11 years per count if convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Three men, all alleged combatants in the shooting that also wounded 13 others at 10th and K streets, were also shot dead: Sergio Harris, 38, Joshua Hoye-Lucchessi, 32, and 29-year-old Davazia Turner.
Throughout the lengthy trial, blocks from the site of the city’s deadliest ever mass shooting, prosecutors depicted the violence as the bloody culmination of a standoff between gang enemies fueled by anger, bravado, and score-settling that turned a bustling intersection into a battlefield.
“They construct a lethal zone of danger that kills those three bystanders,” Eixenberger said in her June closing statement.
“Nobody’s getting a pass here,” Eixenberger continued, pointing at Martin and Payton. “This was fueled by anger and gang expectations. They had to settle a score — a gang score.”
But attorneys Reid Kingsbury for Payton and Linda Parisi for Martin argued the two men, though armed that night, were caught in a burst of spontaneous gunfire triggered by Sergio Harris and fired back to defend themselves.
Both attorneys argued that Payton, with Davazia Turner; Martin, with his brother Smiley, had no conflicts with the alleged shooters that night.
“Where’s the evidence that anyone was ‘settling a score?’” Parisi asked at one point during her June closing argument. “There was no score to be settled.”
The defense attorneys argued Harris fired the first shots that killed Payton friend Turner and set off the barrage that led to the deaths of bystanders Martinez, Alexander, and Davis.
Kingsbury argued that Payton fled for his life firing behind him on 10th Street as bullets whizzed and ricocheted past; and argued Payton’s return fire was not responsible for the deaths of the three women.
Payton was wounded as was Martin and Martin’s brother, Smiley. Smiley Martin died in custody at Sacramento County Main Jail in 2024 as he awaited trial in the shootings.
Both Payton and Martin testified in their own defense at trial, recalling the chaotic moments at closing time.
“Everybody was running in the same direction as me. People were getting shot around me. I was scared,” Payton testified in June.
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