Cedar Rapids man sentenced to 27 years for fatal shooting of teen in 2021

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 19-year-old Cedar Rapids man was sentenced Friday to 27 years in prison for fatally shooting a 15-year-old Illinois girl in 2021 during a gun sale that turned into a “tussle” over money and the handgun.

Marshawn Rome Jackson, originally charged with first-degree murder, pleaded in December to an amended charge of voluntary manslaughter, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, dominion/control of a firearm by a felon and obstructing prosecution.

He will have to serve a mandatory 10 years before being eligible for parole.

His probation on a previous conviction of trafficking stolen weapons was revoked last year, and 6th Judicial District Judge Paul Miller ran the 27 years consecutively to a five- year sentence on that conviction, for a total of 32 years in prison.

Jackson also was ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to Tyliyah Whitis’ heirs or estate.

Jackson, during the plea hearing last December, admitted to intentionally shooting Whitis, of Peoria, Ill., during a gun sale July 21, 2021.

Jackson and Whitis, who was in Cedar Rapids visiting her sister, knew each other and had hung out in the past, First Assistant Monica Slaughter said after the plea.

Whitis was driving her sister’s car, and Jackson and another juvenile were in the back seat, Slaughter said.

Jackson said Whitis wanted to buy a gun from him and wanted to hold it, but Jackson wanted to see the money first. A tussle over the gun began, and Jackson became angry and started getting out of the car. Whitis started accelerating, and Jackson fired the gun, hitting her in the back.

The other juvenile got out of the car and was struck by the car, though not seriously injured, Slaughter said.

Whitis was found dead in the driver’s seat of her sister’s car after it crashed at the Hawthorne Hills Apartment Complex in the 2200 block of C Street SW.

Slaughter said the information came out during depositions in the case. She amended the original charge of first-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter because Jackson said he became provoked in the heat of the moment when Whitis accelerated as he was trying to get out.

Tyliyah’s parents, Michael Whitis of Waterloo and Amanda Guzzle of Peoria, told The Gazette last February they were happy Jackson was behind bars but that they were grieving over their child, “who lit up the room with her smile” and that nothing would bring her back.

“I miss her so much,” Guzzle said. “He doesn’t know the person he took away and what a bright future was ahead of her.”

“I still cry almost every day,” Whitis said. “It upsets me that somebody so young would take another young life.”

Tyliyah attended Harrison Elementary in Cedar Rapids from second to fifth grades — from December 2013 to June 2017 — and started sixth grade at Roosevelt Middle School in 2017 before moving to Peoria with her mother.

Tyliyah had been in Cedar Rapids for a few weeks to visit her older sister, T’yanna Nesby, who is Guzzle’s daughter. Nesby told The Gazette after the shooting that she found out her sister had been shot when she reported her car missing that morning.

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