A 19-year-old St. Paul man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for fatally shooting his girlfriend’s cousin after he intervened in a domestic assault.
A Ramsey County district judge sentenced Theotis Thomas on Wednesday, about five months after he killed Mark Franklin Jr., 21.
Thomas pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in the case after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors that called for the dismissal of four other charges facing him. He also pleaded guilty to one count of terroristic threats.
The encounter happened in March after Franklin protected his cousin when Thomas, the woman’s boyfriend, wrapped his hands around her neck. Thomas initially fled but later returned to the family’s home in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood. He had a gun.
Two infants and other children were inside the house at the time. When Thomas fired a shot into a bedroom wall, Franklin tried to wrestle the gun away from him, according to relatives.
Thomas’ girlfriend also tried to intervene, but Thomas wound up shooting Franklin in the face.
He died shortly thereafter at a local hospital.
Thomas turned himself in to police that night, saying he didn’t know why authorities had been looking for him and that he had been “too drunk and stoned” to recall what happened.
Family members called Franklin a peacemaker who died trying to protect himself and the people he loved.