Oct. 11, 2002 – With the parents of his victim and his own grandmother looking on, DeShaune Harrigan was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the shooting death two and a half years earlier of 18-year-old Jason Carroll.
Prosecutors said Harrigan, 27, shot Carroll in broad daylight on Main Street after a chance encounter. Authorities said there was bad blood between the two stemming from an argument a year earlier.
When they met on Main Street, Harrigan was carrying an illegal handgun and Carroll was unarmed. After a brief altercation, Harrigan shot Carroll once in the chest and once in the arm, then fled to Hibiscus Alley, where he threw the gun away.
Harrigan was arrested the next day and charged with first-degree murder and three firearms counts. Last January, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and to using a handgun with an obliterated serial number to shoot and kill Carroll.
Because Harrigan was charged with federal weapons counts as well as murder, the case was brought in District Court rather than Territorial Court. But because the victim's father, James Carroll, was the first assistant U.S. attorney on St. Thomas, all of the U.S. Attorney's Office prosecutors recused themselves, spokesman Hugh Mabe said on Friday.
District Judge Thomas K. Moore also recused himself, and District Judge Raymond Finch came to St. Thomas from St. Croix to preside over the trial. The case was prosecuted by V.I. Justice Department attorneys and a visiting attorney from the U.S. Justice Department.
In addition to being sentenced to 15 years in prison, Harrigan was ordered to pay $16, 670.20 in restitution to his victim's family. As Finch announced the sentence on Thursday, he told Harrigan that both he and Carroll had once shown great promise for life as adults, but now Carroll was dead.
Just prior to hearing the sentence, Carroll's family had a chance to tell the judge how the boy's death had affected them. St. Thomas reporter Dan Kuemmel, who was in the courtroom at the time, recalled the testimony of James Carroll.
"When the father got up to speak, he said he used to work 12, 15 hours a day for six months after his son got killed. He couldn't think about it without breaking down and crying," Kuemmel said.
The Carrolls have since moved from the Virgin Islands. Mabe said the family flew in from Maryland for the sentencing and left shortly afterward. "I think they wanted to put this thing behind them a long time ago," he said Friday.
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