KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — A woman was sentenced in court on Tuesday, December 13 to decades in prison for murdering a man in South Haven nearly a year-and-a-half ago.
According to police, 24-year-old Tiah Sutton was found guilty of second-degree murder after she shot and killed 43-year-old Shondell Newell following and alleged fight near South Haven’s Elkenburg Park on July 8, 2021.
Authorities went onto say that Sutton, who was inside a car with with Newell and another man, shot Newell once in the chest, turned to the other man, put the pistol in his side, and told him to keep driving. Newell then got out of the car and into his SUV and began to drive erratically, crashing his car in the parking lot of the Pizza Hut on LaGrange Street, close by to where the shooting took place, according to prosecutors.
Sutton’s attorney told the court that she was acting in self-defense and that she allegedly had been threatened by Newell earlier that day, and again before she pulled the trigger.
Sutton was found guilty on October 13 of second-degree murder, possessing a firearm in a vehicle, and possession of carrying a firearm during commission or attempted commission of a crime of murder or manslaughter, prosecutors said.
She was found not guilty on charges of unlawful imprisonment and carrying a firearm during commission or attempted commission of the crime of unlawful imprisonment.
