Two St. Louis County men, Jerry Wafford, 29, and Reuben Smith, 35, were handed five-year prison sentences yesterday for the 2020 killing of 23-year-old Darrell McClendon, following plea deals with the prosecution. In a case that could have seen the two men facing much lengthier sentences, Wafford and Smith both admitted to voluntary manslaughter charges, a step down from the initial first-degree murder charge each had faced.
McClendon lost his life on September 7, 2020, after being found with multiple gunshot wounds in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood, specifically on the lawn of a residence in the 1400 block of Temple Place, and later succumbed to his injuries in a hospital following the violent incident both Wafford and Smith now stand legally condemned for their role in his untimely demise, their trials set for this week before they struck an agreement mitigating the potency of the law's might had the case proceeded as Circuit Judge John Bird presided.
In an update from the city's legal proceedings, the St. Louis City Circuit Court reported that the plea agreements included the dismissal of three other counts. The justice system has thus moved in its deliberate, though not always swift, rhythm, taking into account the variables and pieces that compose the tragic tableau of a life lost and others irrevocably altered.
The gravity of the case and the lives it has altered did not pass unnoticed; During sentencing, an assistant circuit attorney conveyed that McClendon's mother expressed a sense of gratitude towards the defendants for accepting responsibility for what they've done, her wounded heart looking down the corridors of time, hoping for the seeds of redemption to yet find soil in the lives of her son's killers with Judge Bird echoing her sentiments,expressing his own desire that the men would take the opportunity before them, to pivot toward a path that could mean something more than the sum of their wrongs.
