A San Francisco jury has once again found Joseph Stevens guilty in a Potrero Hill shooting that killed 22-year-old Dernae Wysinger and his 2-year-old son, Naemon, and wounded the child’s mother, nearly two decades after the attack first rattled the Turner Terrace housing complex.
The verdict, delivered Monday in a long-awaited retrial ordered by a federal court, reconvicts Stevens, now 42, on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault with a firearm. He was taken back into custody immediately after the jury’s decision, and a hearing to schedule sentencing is expected in February, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins called the outcome a step toward justice for the victims’ family, and Assistant District Attorney Justine Cephus praised the courage of the witness who took the stand, according to the Chronicle.
How Prosecutors Say The Turner Terrace Shooting Unfolded
Prosecutors told jurors that on Oct. 14, a 22-year-old Stevens opened fire with a high-powered rifle into a parked car outside a relative’s home at Turner Terrace, unloading at least 18 rounds, according to a federal order summarizing the case history. The account is detailed in Justia.
Wysinger was pronounced dead at the scene. His toddler son, Naemon, died after being rushed to San Francisco General Hospital. The boy’s mother, Jazmanika Ridout, survived with non-life-threatening injuries and was later placed in a witness protection program, the order states.
From 2007 Conviction To Federal Reversal And Retrial
Stevens was first convicted in 2007 and sentenced to multiple life terms with lengthy firearm enhancements. More than a decade later, a federal judge granted his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, finding juror misconduct and other trial errors.
The petition for a writ of habeas corpus is GRANTED, the 2018 order states, directing that Stevens receive a new trial. That retrial began this fall and culminated in Monday’s guilty verdict, effectively putting the case back where it stood before the federal court intervened, but with the record now cleared of the earlier procedural problems.
Old Feud, Renewed Testimony
Reporting from the time of the original prosecution described a long-running feud between Stevens and Wysinger that had stretched on for more than a year before the shooting. That tense history resurfaced repeatedly during testimony in the retrial, as lawyers revisited the same neighborhood conflicts that once dominated Potrero Hill gossip and police reports.
Early coverage also tracked the case from Stevens’ first court appearances, including a special-circumstance double murder filing that put even more legal weight behind the charges. An initial report on those proceedings and the not-guilty plea he entered was published by SFGATE, which outlined the original arraignment and charges that would shape the case’s long march through the courts.
Stevens remains in custody while a judge is expected to set a formal sentencing date in February, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle. For the victims’ family, surviving witnesses, and neighbors who never forgot the night of the Turner Terrace gunfire, the latest verdict closes a sprawling legal chapter that has stretched across two court systems and nearly twenty years.
