Two 2019 fatal shooting cases moved through courts in Memphis recently, one described as “random” and “unprovoked” and another involving a shopkeeper and a shoplifter.
Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich’s office shared details of both last week.
Last week, a jury convicted Demarcus Z. Wooten, 21, on murder and gun charges, earning him an automatic life sentence. He will be sentenced formally on all charges in February.
Court testimony put Wooten in the back seat of a car with several others in the early-morning hours of June 12th, 2019. At Mt. Moriah and Willow, Wooten shot at another motorist in a car, shattering the car’s window and hitting its door. The driver was not injured. Minutes later, the car stopped at a traffic light at Mt. Moriah and Quince.
Wooten laughed and said, ‘Look at his body.’
“Witnesses said that for no apparent reason Wooten shot 49-year-old Willie C. Gandy in the back as he crossed the street in the crosswalk in front of the car,” reads a statement from Weirich’s office. “Witnesses said the car’s driver continued on Mt. Moriah, but that Wooten told the driver to make a u-turn and that as they passed the shooting scene Wooten laughed and said, ‘Look at his body.’
“When a witness texted him later asking about the shooting, Wooten, a gang member whose nickname is Hot Head, replied ‘He dead’ in a return text with a smiling emoji.”
Also last week, a grand jury indicted Charles Kalb, 59, a Memphis store owner, after he fatally shot Lamorris Robinson, 33, in the back for attempting to steal a chainsaw. The jury indicted Kalb on first-degree murder charges and possession of a prohibited sawed-off shotgun. He is free on $1 million bond.
The store owner is free on $1M bond but faces first-degree murder charges.
At around 1:30 p.m. on October 16, 2019, Kalb said he saw Robinson pick up a chainsaw and run from his store, Mid-South Small Engines, in the 2600 block of Mt. Moriah. Surveillance video shows Kalb grab a shotgun from under the counter, run after the suspect, and shoot him in the back outside the store. Robinson was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
