OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Sentencing is set for an Oklahoma pharmacist convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting death of a teenager who tried to rob the south Oklahoma City pharmacy where he worked.
Fifty-9-year-old Jerome Ersland is scheduled to be sentenced Monday by Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott. A jury convicted Ersland of murder on May 26 and recommended he be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors say Ersland was justified in shooting 16-year-old Antwun Parker once in the head at the Reliable Discount Pharmacy in May 2009, a shot that knocked him unconscious.
But they say Ersland went too far when he grabbed a second gun and fired five more bullets into the unconscious and unarmed teen’s abdomen, wounds the Medical Examiner’s Office said killed him.
