A man has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for gunning down 32-year-old Cievion Smith outside a Fairborn apartment complex last year, closing out a case that stretched from a late-night shooting on June Drive to an arrest across state lines in Kentucky. Brandon Peters was sentenced on Friday, more than a year after the killing and about six weeks after a Greene County jury convicted him.
According to WKEF, Peters is described as a man from Clarksville, Tennessee, though the station's own earlier reporting on his arrest had identified him as being from Fairborn — a discrepancy that remains unresolved in public reporting. Reports have also differed on his age, with one account putting him at 38 and another at 39. The sentence handed down Friday was 25 years to life in prison for the 2025 Fairborn murder.
The shooting unfolded around 10:38 p.m. on June 9, 2025, when Fairborn police responded to a report of gunfire at Fairborn Apartments near June Drive and Williams Street, according to Dayton Daily News. Officers arrived to find Smith shot multiple times on the ground; he was pronounced dead at the scene. The same reporting indicates surveillance video reportedly showed a person in a black truck shoot Smith before driving away from the complex.
Flock Cameras and a Vehicle Trail Led to an Arrest in Kentucky
Investigators leaned heavily on technology to crack the case. The outlet's report notes that investigators used Flock cameras to determine the suspect fled onto Interstate 75 South, then identified Peters as the suspect using vehicle registration information. From there, police tracked him to Oak Grove, Kentucky, where local police made the arrest.
Prosecutors said Peters was found in possession of a gun at the time. Surveillance footage and the Flock camera data were central to connecting him to the shooting, piecing together his path from the Fairborn complex to the interstate and ultimately to Kentucky.
Jury Spent Three and a Half Hours Before Rejecting Self-Defense
At trial, Peters claimed he had acted in self-defense, but the Greene County jury did not agree with that claim. The jury found him guilty of murder and felonious assault on Oct. 2, 2026, after deliberating for three and a half hours, per the same Dayton Daily News account. Court records cited in that reporting show the jury's verdict covered purposeful murder, felony murder, and felonious assault.
The Xenia Gazette reported that jurors rejected the self-defense claim, finding it inconsistent with statements Peters had made to law enforcement officers prior to the trial. That inconsistency, according to the Gazette, undercut the defense's case before the jury.
More than a year after Smith was killed outside the apartment complex on June Drive, the case has reached its conclusion with Friday's sentencing. The investigation's reliance on surveillance footage and license-plate reading technology to track a fleeing suspect across state lines ultimately brought Peters back to Ohio to face the charges that led to his 25-year-to-life sentence.
