A 20-year-old North Little Rock man who claimed he was protecting himself from an armed robber in a fatal shooting has accepted a 20-year prison sentence for the killing.
Danny Ray Dednam pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder, for the September 2015 slaying of Keon Dewayne Woodson, 22, at an Exxon convenience store on Camp Robinson Road, deputy prosecutor Ashley Clancy said.
North Little Rock police said Dednam, then 18, fired his gun into a sport utility vehicle where Woodson was a back-seat passenger.
Under Dednam's plea agreement, negotiated by defense attorney Bill James, prosecutors also dropped four counts of committing a terroristic act, each count representing one of the other men in the vehicle.
Shot three times, Woodson died instantly, but the others were unhurt.
Among witnesses to the slaying, two told police that they knew Dednam well from regularly buying marijuana from him and had been planning to buy more on the day of the killing.
The defense pointed to a witness statement that described a slight altercation between the men just before the shooting as an indication that Woodson was trying to rob Dednam.
Woodson's friends told police that Dednam and Woodson had spoken in the store parking lot while both were sitting in their vehicles. Dednam was in a Chevrolet Impala.
The Woodson group left but returned a short while later because Woodson wanted to talk to Dednam again, his friends told police.
Store surveillance video did not show the slaying, but detectives said the recording did show Dednam getting out of his car with a gun.
Dednam was arrested the day after the slaying after a high-speed police chase.
He also was arrested in January with his cousin when police found a gun and marijuana in Dednam's car after a North Little Rock traffic stop.
But no charges were filed after Dednam's cousin, 25-year-old Tevin Doles, told police the drugs and weapon belonged to him.
Court records show Woodson had been in trouble with the law before involving marijuana. He'd been on probation three years at the time of his death on charges stemming from two marijuana arrests in 2012.
Metro on 09/28/2017