ST. LOUIS – A judge sentenced 70-year-old Larry Thomlison to 16 years in prison Thursday after a jury made that recommendation in their March guilty verdict for first-degree assault and armed criminal action. For the first time, you can hear from a man who witnessed the unpredictable shooting.
“I didn’t know he had a gun until after he shot Jaylen,” said Michael Mayfield.
Mayfield was driving an Amazon delivery truck on March 5, 2019, when he met another driver at a St. Charles County Target store to work out technical difficulties. He met Jaylen Walker that day. Walker is now paralyzed because of an encounter with a man who, Mayfield said: “approached them aggressively about where Jaylen parked.”
“He was like this—taking video of Jaylen—and Jaylen, he snatched the phone, but he had a good grip, so they started scuffling over the phone,” he said.
Thomlison reportedly fell in the scuffle and then shot Jaylen in the back.
“Man, this happened so quickly; there wasn’t much I could really do,” Mayfield said.
It came out in court testimony that Mayfield was able to get the defendant’s gun by asking for it.
“You’ve got to let go of the gun,” Mayfield said he told the man. “But I wasn’t trying to make it too aggressive to where he wanted to shoot me. I was just like, ‘Man, let the gun go.’”
In 2020, a paralyzed Walker said he’d forgiven the shooter. He told a judge on the stand that his life expectancy has been shortened 20 – 30 years from the shooting and that defendant Thomlison won’t even serve that much time in prison.
Thomlison’s attorney asked the judge for mercy.
“The offense while egregious, is also an aberration as Thomlison has done nothing else criminal in his prior 69 years,” he said.
The defense attorney added that the defendant has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
The judge sentenced Thomlison to the 16 years recommended by the jury. Walker asked his mother to speak on camera on his behalf.
“It’s been a long time coming as well as a chapter that needs to be closed,” said Regina Lewis, Walker’s mother.
She said their forgiveness – stands.
“If you can forgive others that have wronged you, then the sky’s the limit on what you can do in this world,” Lewis said.