A judge in Lawrenceville, Georgia, sentenced a teenager in Gwinnett to 140 years in prison on Monday after police said he shot and killed a woman in 2021.
Prosecutors say Dacula Mitchell, 17, who killed Faith Burns in a parcel of the Dacula area, fired up to 19 ammunition at home on Valentine’s Day 2021. Police said Mitchell and Burns didn’t know each other, but Burns knew Mitchell’s ex-girlfriend.
Mitchell sent a text to her ex-girlfriend that she planned to shoot her house and make her jump. Police said Burns happened to be at her ex-girlfriend’s house when Mitchell and four other girls appeared at home and started shooting.
The prosecution claimed that the shooting was a fight between former gangster lovers. When I went home, the other four girls were charged with Mitchell.
However, Mitchell’s family said she had too many judgments.
Channel 2 Gwinnett County Director Tony Thomas Michelle’s family said the 17-year-old woman had no records and claimed she was not a shooter.
“I know I need to do something. What they were in court wasn’t right,” said Mitchell’s mother, Vanissa Jackson. “She is not a shooter. She did not do this.”
Mitchell’s aunt Lena Hall said a 140-year sentence would take her life.
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“There is no record, a child. She doesn’t even have the opportunity to live her life and she doesn’t have her own child,” Hall said.
The prosecutor painted a very different picture of Mitchell and called her a murderer who was deeply connected to the life of a street gangster.
The jury did not convict Mitchell of the murder, instead opting for deliberate manslaughter, three assaults, and eight street gang terrorism. A jury found that she did not have a gun, and she was not convicted of two other gang charges.
Another of Mitchell’s aunts, identified only as Dori, said her niece knew the girl involved in the fight from elementary school.
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“It’s not like they’re in a gang because they’re always hanging out together,” she said. “They are a group of girls who like to hang out and do typical things.”
Prosecutors have shown videos and texts of jury trials that teens have proved to be associated with violent gangsters and have a history of organizing street fights. Eighty of the 140 years given to Michelle include gang accusations, something the family said they were having a hard time understanding.
The family will protest at the courthouse tomorrow.
According to the district attorney’s office, the other four defendants in the case have not yet been tried.
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