An Albany County jury has convicted two men in the 2021 shooting death of Shanita Thomas, a pregnant mother who was killed by a bullet meant for someone else while attending a party on Central Avenue. Raa’jiem Coleman was found guilty of second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, while Marcel Perry was convicted of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
The verdicts, handed down Tuesday in Albany County Court, cap a case that stretches back nearly six years, according to the Times Union. Thomas, described in court proceedings as a 35-year-old Albany woman, was attending a grand opening party for a friend's boutique on Central Avenue on Jan. 30, 2021, when gunfire broke out. She was pregnant with her third child at the time of her death, per the same account.
Schenectady County Assistant District Attorney Peter Willis, who served as special prosecutor on the case, said the shooting began shortly after Coleman arrived at the party. Willis described the violence as stemming from a gang dispute pitting Coleman and Vramir Branch against Perry and Terrence Anthony. Thomas, Willis said, was an innocent bystander struck by a bullet Coleman fired at someone else. Willis also said Coleman shot another woman in the chest and elbow during the same burst of gunfire.
A Party That Spilled Into Tragedy
The shooting that killed Thomas unfolded after a larger gathering of an estimated 75 to 100 people was broken up, with Thomas and a smaller group moving leftover food down the street to an apartment at 211 Central Ave., according to a separate Times Union report. It was at that smaller gathering that the gunfire erupted, leaving Thomas dead and four other people wounded.
Court records cited by the news outlet show that the case took years to reach trial. Four men were indicted by an Albany County grand jury on Oct. 7, 2022, with Coleman charged separately on Oct. 17, 2022. Coleman and Perry were indicted on murder charges alongside Anthony that same October. Trial in the case finally began on Oct. 14, 2026.
Guilty Pleas From Two Co-Defendants
On the same day the trial opened, Branch and Anthony pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal possession of a weapon rather than face trial alongside Coleman and Perry. Branch agreed to a 10-year prison term, according to his attorney, William Theodore Martin. Anthony's attorney, Daniel Smalls, said his client will serve 12 years concurrent to a separate 20-years-to-life sentence Anthony is already facing from an unrelated attempted robbery conviction.
Anthony and Branch are scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 18, while Coleman and Perry are set to be sentenced on Jan. 15, 2027. The case was handled by a special prosecutor rather than the Albany County District Attorney's Office after District Attorney Lee Kindlon had previously represented Anthony as a defense attorney, a conflict that led the office to transfer the matter to Willis.
A Lasting Void, Friends Say
Those who knew Thomas have described her as a mother, an aspiring nurse and someone who worked to promote her friends' businesses, consistent with her presence at the boutique's grand opening the night she died. A friend of Thomas's said Tuesday that no verdict, sentence or amount of justice could bring her back, adding that her absence would remain a lasting void for those close to her.
The case has also drawn a separate legal complication: Jasper L. Mills III was indicted on multiple felony charges for allegedly disclosing a confidential witness's name connected to the prosecution, underscoring the sensitivity surrounding witnesses in the case.
Thomas's killing adds to a grim statewide backdrop. A 2021 report from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services recorded 16 homicides in Albany that year, part of a broader rise in shooting homicides of 54 percent among the jurisdictions the report tracked. For Thomas's family and friends, those statistics carry a name and a face nearly six years after a bullet meant for someone else found her instead.
