Man who killed 13-year-old would-be thief in St. Louis gets probation for gun offense

ST. LOUIS • A judge sentenced Lervurance McDade on Tuesday morning to three years on probation for being a felon in possession of the gun he used to kill a teenager caught rifling through his car.

St. Louis prosecutors passed on more serious charges against McDade given the latitude of Missouri’s “castle doctrine” law that permits use of deadly force in the face of “reasonable fear.”

Police said McDade was more than 70 feet away when he fired the shot that killed Martinez Smith-Payne. Court documents said McDade, 61, handed a Colt .380-caliber pistol to police Sgt. James Kenny five minutes after the shooting, about 12:45 a.m. Nov. 29, 2015, and admitted it was his.

McDade pleaded guilty Tuesday and told a reporter afterward that he just wanted to get the incident behind him. He will be eligible for release from probation after two years if he meets the terms.

Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said Tuesday that “our prosecution was barred in that case by the castle doctrine.”

“It’s always sad when you see a young person who is killed because of guns,” Joyce said. “Obviously, this young man was in a place where he shouldn’t have been, doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Missouri’s laws are pretty clear on this now, though. What we were left with in this case was a gun possession ... Anybody else in that situation with that charge would have gotten the same result.”

The dead teenager’s cousin, Ernest Williams, 14, said last year that he, Martinez and an 11-year-old friend sneaked out that night, jumped over a backyard fence and looked for pocket change in the car on its owner’s property in the 5900 block of Riverview Boulevard.

Ernest said the man fired without first confronting them.

The teenagers’ friend fled but Ernest stayed with his wounded cousin. Martinez, who lived in the 5200 block of Davison Avenue, died at a hospital. He was a seventh-grader at Confluence Elite Academy in St. Louis.

McDade had pleaded guilty in 1989 in Pemiscot County, Mo., of illegal possession of a weapon and unlawful use of a weapon, court documents say. He also was sentenced in 2013 in St. Louis County Circuit Court to five years on probation on a felony charge of being more than 12 months in arrears on child support.

Joel Currier • 314-340-8256

@joelcurrier on Twitter

jcurrier@post-dispatch.com

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