Burlington student’s killer gets life in prison

One of two men convicted of killing a Burlington High School student almost two years ago was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole.

Jorge 'Lumni” Sanders-Galvez, 23, of St. Louis, was given the mandatory life sentence in the killing of Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old gender-fluid youth whose body was found in March 2016 in an alley behind a home near Fourth and Walnut streets on South Hill.

Investigators said Johnson bled to death after being shot twice in the chest with a .357 revolver. A trash bag was stuffed down his throat and a second plastic bag was tied around his head.

Prosecutors told the jury during his trial that the defendants tortured Johnson before executing him.

Shortly after District Judge Mary Ann Brown sentenced him on the murder charge Monday, Sanders-Galvez was told of new felony charges against him of attempted murder and assault on a correctional officer in connection with an attack on an officer this month at the Des Moines County Jail.

Sanders-Galvez was one of three men charged Monday in the attack on the correctional officer.

Also charged were Earl Booth-Harris, 24, who was sentenced Monday to life in prison on first-degree murder charges unrelated to Johnson's murder, and Bobby Joe Morris, 27, who recently was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his conviction on several armed robbery charges.

If convicted of attempting to kill the guard, the men each face an additional 30 years in prison.

During Sanders-Galvez's sentencing Monday, a spokesman for Johnson's mother, Katrina Johnson, read her impassioned plea to sentence her son's killer to the maximum penalty.

'My son was a loving child, who was robbed (of his future while) in the prime of his life,” she said in her statement.

Because the sentence is life in prison without parole, neither lawyers for the prosecution or defense spent much time discussing the possible sentencing with Brown.

Des Moines County Attorney Amy Beavers simply asked Brown to follow Iowa law in imposing the mandatory sentence.

While Curtis Dial, a Keokuk lawyer who was appointed to represent Sanders-Galvez along with Burlington lawyer Ron Ellerhoff, asked Brown to take into consideration his client's age at the time of the killing.

'I understand Iowa law and the mandatory sentence that applies,” Dial told Brown. 'But I would ask you to consider my client's age in pronouncing sentence. I also understand that is more of an appeal issue than a matter to be raised at this hearing (sentencing).”

Sanders-Galvez responded 'No” when asked by Brown whether he wanted to say anything before sentencing.

Several of Johnson's friends and relatives attended Monday's 20-minute hearing. Guards lined the packed courtroom, while others were stationed outside the third-floor courtroom.

Sanders-Galvez's co-defendant, Jaron Purham, 25, also of St. Louis, remains in the Lee County jail in lieu of a $2 million bond. A trial date has not been set in his first-degree murder case.

Johnson, a popular Burlington High School student, regularly alternated his attitude and attire between a boy and a girl based on his mood, said family, friends and teachers.

Prosecutors claim the two men killed Johnson because they thought he was a 'pretty, petite female” as they saw him walking alone near Hy-Vee at Ninth and Angular streets. Prosecutors said the two men kidnapped Johnson with the intention of taking him to a home in the 2600 block Madison Avenue, where Sanders-Galvez and Purham often stayed while in Burlington.

Prosecutors said Sanders-Galvez and Purham became angry with Johnson at the Madison Avenue home when they discovered he was a male.

The men also face possible capital murder charges if they are tried in U.S. District Court in Davenport on hate crime charges related to the murder of Johnson. If they are convicted of Johnson's death as a hate crime under federal law, they could face the death penalty because a firearm was used to kill Johnson in the commission of a hate crime.

Christopher Perras, a federal prosecutor who assisted Laura Roan, an assistant Iowa attorney general, and Des Moines County Amy Beavers in prosecuting Sanders-Galvez, did not comment on whether he thinks federal hate crime charges will be filed in U.S. District Court.

Sanders-Galvez is in custody at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. He will remain there while awaiting trial on the new charges of attempted murder and assault on a correctional officer.