By age 14, Paul Sampleton Jr. managed to do what most people never accomplish, turning his passion — for collectible basketball shoes — into a profit.
His classmates at Grayson High School took note, and one of them, 15-year-old Larnell Sillah, along with his uncle and another man, allegedly killed Sampleton in Dec. 2012, taking three flatscreen televisions, an Xbox video gaming system, a computer, headphones, an iPad2, clothes and eight pairs of shoes from the teen’s home. Sampleton acquired many of the valuables from buying shoes sold in limited quantities, such as Air Jordans, and then re-selling them online.
For that, he was shot three times in the head, prosecutors say.
The trial of his alleged killers — Sillah, his uncle, Andrew Murray, now 28, and Tauvaughn Saylor, 29 — opens today in a heavily guarded Gwinnett County courtroom. Prosecutors say they have a strong case — investigators recovered one pair of the stolen sneakers in the garage at Sillah’s home and a silver BMW registered to Murray was spotted in Sampleton’s subdivision the day of the murder.
But the trial is not expected to go swiftly. Extra security is planned following claims of witness intimidation by the defendants’ alleged gang, leading Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Debra Turner last week to deny a motion that would’ve allowed audio and video recording of the proceedings.
As an additional precaution, each of the defendants — charged with murder, aggravated assault, robbery and gang-related felonies — will be outfitted with “stun belts.” Meanwhile, Murray plans to act as his own counsel.
That makes what is already a “difficult case that much more difficult to defend,” said Lawrenceville attorney Christine Koehler, adding that judges rarely allow “stun belts.”
“It’s always a challenge when you have multiple defendants,” she said.
They all say they were not involved in the slaying. Prosecutors will argue that Sillah hatched the robbery plan long with two classmates, members of the the Young Wavy Goons, a hybrid gang affiliated with the Bloods, while riding a Gwinnett school bus.
Achiel Morgan, then 15, and Romanie Stewart, 18, helped plot the heist but did not participate, police say. They were charged with armed robbery but will be tried separately. Gwinnett police Det. Andrew Whaley testified at a probable cause hearing that Stewart and Morgan, who played on the freshman football team with Sampleton, planned to divert the 14-year-old while Sillah robbed his home.
In the days leading up the heist, they even invited Sampleton to Stewart’s house for a haircut so they could follow him afterward and get his address, according to Whaley.
“They said they were gonna rob him for his shoes,” the detective testified. “That was the main focus.”
Somewhere along the way Sillah enlisted the help of his uncle and Saylor, prosecutors allege. According to the indictment, the trio also burglarized the home of one of Sampleton’s neighbors five days before the killing.
Murray and Salyor were extradited to Gwinnett in June after being convicted on unrelated charges in Connecticut and New York, respectively.
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