A Fort Wayne man on Friday was sentenced to the maximum 95 years for the murder and robbery that led to a 2022 homicide over a gun trade.
Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull ordered Anfernee Dean, 25, to spend 65 years in prison for murder and 30 for robbery. A jury found him guilty of both charges in September.
Dean was also initially charged with a sentencing enhancement that prosecutors dropped ahead of the trial. His charges mirrored then-17-year-old Lonnel Tinker°®¶¹app™s for the shooting death of Johnny R. Yates, 27.
Yates was found with multiple gunshot wounds in a vehicle at the 2900 block of Reed Street, court records said. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Yates was the 24th and final homicide of 2022 in Allen County. So far this year, 39 people have died of homicides, according to the Allen County coroner°®¶¹app™s office.
His girlfriend, who was in the vehicle°®¶¹app™s driver°®¶¹app™s seat, said Yates had asked her to go with him as he traded guns, court records said. He had met the three °®¶¹appœyoung adults°®¶¹app at a corner store several weeks earlier, she told police.
Two suspects got in the back seat of the vehicle as instructed by Yates. A third suspect walked up to the vehicle before the two in the back seat pulled out guns and pointed them at Yates and his girlfriend, court records said.
One suspect demanded they give them everything they had, and another repeatedly yelled at the woman to turn off the vehicle. When she did, the suspect snatched the keys away from her.
She grabbed them back, and that was when she heard gunshots and dropped to the floor of the vehicle. The suspects then got into their vehicle and fled, court records said.
Surveillance video captured the homicide, and the suspects were identified by a witness and a confidential informant, according to court records. Tinker and Dean were the only suspects arrested.
Tinker, now 19, was arrested about a week after the shooting. Dean was arrested in January, about a month after Tinker.
Tinker was found guilty of murder and robbery in April 2023, and those two counts were merged, according to online court records. Jurors found him not guilty of the sentencing enhancement. He was sentenced later that month to 65 years in prison.
About a month after he was sentenced, Tinker filed a case to appeal his conviction and sentence. In April, the Indiana Court of Appeals judges formally agreed with the lower court°®¶¹app™s decisions.
Gull on Friday gave Dean credit for 709 days toward his sentence because he has been in the Allen County Jail°®¶¹app™s custody since Jan. 5, 2023.
