AKRON, Ohio — A 26-year-old man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for the 2023 murder of 34-year-old Ernestine Stallings.
Jontae Watkins was given 23 years to life for the aggravated murder charge he faced and another 10 years for aggravated drug trafficking, for a total of 33 years to life.
He appeared via Zoom and was not physically present in the courtroom for his sentencing.
Stallings's family brought a cardboard cutout of her to the sentencing.
In October, Watkins pleaded no contest to Stallings's death as well as separate drug charges stemming from the investigation. Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands found him guilty.
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In July of 2023, Stallings and her fiancée, Tasha Love, visited the Dollar Tree on West Market Street in Akron. They left the store carrying balloons for a birthday party for Love's son when shots from an AR-15 rifle rang out. Stallings was shot six times in the back and died. The bullets narrowly missed Love.
FLOCK cameras and various surveillance footage connected Watkins to the case. He was arrested in September 2023. Prosecutors said Watkins confessed to the murder and admitted it was a case of misidentification.
According to prosecutors, Watkins and his girlfriend, Atavia Robinson, were shot outside of a movie theater in the Chapel Hill neighborhood in June of 2022.
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Robinson was killed. Akron police said that homicide remains unsolved.
Stallings's murder took place more than a year after Robinson's killing.
Prosecutors said Watkins pulled into the Dollar Tree parking lot and waited for Stallings to emerge from the store, mistakenly thinking she was the person involved in Robinson's death.
