A St. Louis judge sentenced 48-year-old Mario Lee to 40 years in prison Friday for the December 2023 shooting death of 34-year-old Candace Horskins, a St. Charles woman killed inside a home on the 5800 block of Kennerly Avenue in the city's Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. Lee never addressed the court, even as Horskins' family placed framed photographs of her on the prosecutors' table and her sister recited an adaptation of the Serenity Prayer during the hearing.
St. Louis Circuit Judge John T. Bird ordered three consecutive prison terms to reach the total: 15 years for involuntary manslaughter, 15 years for armed criminal action, and 10 years for unlawful gun possession, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A St. Louis jury convicted Lee in May of the lesser manslaughter charge rather than the first-degree or second-degree murder that prosecutors had originally sought, concluding he acted recklessly when he fatally shot Horskins in the forehead at close range.
The path to a 40-year term for a manslaughter conviction runs through Missouri's habitual-offender rules. Lee was classified as a prior and persistent offender under Missouri Revised Statutes Section 558.016 because of felony drug and firearm convictions dating back to the mid-1990s, a status that let the court push his sentencing range well beyond standard terms, the same report notes. Court records reviewed by KSDK previously showed Lee had operated under multiple aliases, including Mark K. Wells, Mario Montell Lewis, Marlo Daniel Lee, and Mario Lee Love, with a record that included drug trafficking, drug possession, vehicle theft, and unlawful weapon use.
Why the Sentences Had to Stack
Judge Bird had no discretion to run the armed criminal action term alongside the others. Missouri Revised Statutes Section 571.015 requires that any sentence for armed criminal action run consecutively, not concurrently, with the punishment for the underlying felony, according to FindLaw. That statutory mandate, combined with Lee's persistent-offender status, is what turned a manslaughter conviction into a four-decade prison term.
The case against Lee leaned heavily on the account of a tenant who told investigators she heard a gunshot upstairs and then watched Lee come downstairs, tell her Horskins was dead, and instruct her to call 911 without ever giving his own name. Ring doorbell camera video corroborated Lee's presence at the home and his flight afterward, according to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office. During trial, Lee reportedly testified that he had used the house to sell crack and cocaine and that he shared money and drugs with the witness.
Prosecutor Credits Witness Courage
After the May conviction, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said the courage of that single witness in coming forward to testify supplied the evidence necessary to hold Lee accountable and improve community safety. The jury ultimately found Lee guilty of manslaughter, armed criminal action, and unlawful use or possession of a gun.
The Kennerly Avenue block where Horskins died sits within a stretch of North St. Louis that has repeatedly drawn police attention. Hoodline previously reported on a non-fatal shooting on Kennerly that left a woman critically injured, and on another shooting just blocks away in the Greater Ville. A carjacking on the same corridor also landed on the police blotter last year.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's homicide tracker counted at least 174 homicides across the metropolitan area through late August, with the North St. Louis corridor remaining a focal point for violent-crime enforcement, per the same account. Lee's case, now closed with sentencing, adds one more entry to a court docket that continues to track the toll of gun violence in that part of the city.
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