A North Carolina appeals court has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a Gastonia man who opened fire on his ex-girlfriend's car outside a convenience store in 2020, killing a bystander who ran into the gunfire to protect a two-year-old child. Marshawn Devon Sanders is serving life without parole for the shooting death of 30-year-old Eric De’Sean Glenn, who witnesses said sprinted away from the parked vehicle during the attack to draw shots away from his friend's toddler in the backseat.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals issued its unpublished opinion on October 7, rejecting Sanders' arguments that the trial judge erred by not instructing jurors on second-degree murder and by failing to intervene during the prosecution's closing arguments, according to Justia Law. The three-judge panel's ruling leaves intact the conviction and sentence handed down nearly two years earlier in Gaston County Superior Court.
As reported by WSOC-TV, Sanders was prosecuted by the office of Gaston County District Attorney Travis Page. The case traced back to a breakup around February 2020, when Sanders' girlfriend at the time moved out of their shared home and, according to the station's report, took money from his bank account along with his gun, which she then gave to a friend. By April 2020, Sanders was texting his former girlfriend about the missing money and firearm and threatening her, the outlet reported.
A Deadly Confrontation at a Gastonia Gas Station
The violence culminated on June 9, 2020, when Sanders and his new girlfriend drove to Gastonia looking for his ex, who was reportedly staying at her sister's home, per the same account. The pair spotted her at a gas station, and Sanders opened fire toward her car. The shooting took place at the Incgo Express convenience store on Lowell Bethesda Road, where the victims had driven after calling police and being advised to head to a public place for safety, according to a separate WSOC-TV report.
Gunfire struck Glenn, a friend of Sanders' ex-girlfriend, in the chest, and he died at the scene. Witnesses testified that Glenn ran from the parked car during the shooting specifically to pull gunfire away from the two-year-old child riding in the backseat, the station noted. Glenn was not involved in the underlying dispute between Sanders and his ex, having simply been present as a bystander friend.
Surveillance Video and a Contested Identity
At trial in December 2024, prosecutors showed jurors store surveillance footage depicting the suspect's red vehicle circling the parked Honda, which one witness described as resembling target practice, along with video of an arm extending from the vehicle window firing shots, the outlet reported. Defense attorney Lucky Osho urged jurors to question whether that footage definitively proved the arm belonged to Sanders, making the shooter's identity the central contested issue at trial.
The jury was not persuaded. After a week-long trial, Sanders was convicted on December 10, 2024, of first-degree murder along with two counts of attempted first-degree murder involving his ex-girlfriend and her two-year-old child, two counts of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle, and possession of a firearm by a felon. Judge William T. Stetzer sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole.
Getaway driver Ashley Abernathy, who was 38 at the time of the shooting and drove the car that circled the victims' vehicle, confessed to police and pleaded guilty in 2023 to accessory after the fact to first-degree murder. She received a sentence of seven to ten years in prison.
Why the Conviction Stood on Appeal
Before the Court of Appeals, the state's conviction was defended by Special Deputy Attorney General Asa Covington Edwards IV under Attorney General Jeff Jackson, whose office defended criminal convictions across ten appellate decisions released the same day, according to the North Carolina Department of Justice. Under North Carolina General Statutes Section 14-17, first-degree murder is classified as a Class A felony carrying a mandatory sentence of death or life imprisonment without parole for adult offenders, as outlined by FindLaw. That statute left the trial court no discretion to impose a shorter term once Sanders was convicted.
The appellate ruling closes out more than four years of legal proceedings stemming from the June 2020 shooting, affirming that Sanders will remain imprisoned for life for a crime that began as a domestic dispute over money and a gun and ended with a stranger's fatal act of protecting a child.
