Inset left: Ny'Zhon Thomas (Syracuse.com/Onondaga County Court). Inset right Karon Works (Obituary). Background: Lower Onondaga Park near where Works was shot and killed by Thomas and allegedly two others (Google Maps).
A teenager in upstate New York will be spending significant time behind bars for his role in the execution-style killing of another boy.
On Wednesday, Ny'Zhon Thomas, 19, was sentenced to 24 years to life in prison for one count of second-degree murder. The defendant was also sentenced to 15 years in prison on each of the two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. The court, however, assessed the lower sentences run concurrently with, or at the same time as, the murder sentence.
In handing down the sentence, Onondaga County Court Judge Melinda McGunnigle was withering in her estimation of the killer.
"He was basically walked into the woods and executed," the judge said, according to a recording of the proceedings obtained by Syracuse.com. "It wasn't a youthful indiscretion."
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Thomas is one of three defendants accused of luring 15-year-old Karon Works into a wooded area of Lower Onondaga Park – a 16-acre stretch of green space in Syracuse – in early December 2023. There, the trio is alleged to have used two 9 mm pistols to repeatedly shoot the victim at close range. The boy was then left for dead.
On Dec. 11, 2023, around 8 p.m., the victim was found in the park and rushed to Upstate University Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, according to a prior report by the online local news outlet.
The other defendants in the case are Caleb Gibson, 16, and Ja'kye Jameson, another teenager whose age has not been reported. Both other defendants face second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon charges as well. Their combined indictment does not attempt to clarify who, exactly, fired the fatal shots. Rather, prosecutors allege the trio worked in concert to achieve Works' death. Their cases are currently pending.
In September, Thomas pleaded guilty to the charges against him – but the order of events was not without some drama.
During the hearing, the judge harshly upbraided the since-condemned teen for his late-stage efforts to elude some level of culpability.
"You understood and you pled guilty," McGunnigle recounted. "Yet then [in] the pre-sentence report, you try and deny that. And the probation officer indicates that other than your plea of guilty, you have failed to accept responsibility for your actions."
The judge went on like this, at length:
You indicated in your pre-sentence report that your lawyer and your family pressured you to take this time because you knew how much time you were facing after trial. And that's the reason people plead out. But then you also say: "Why would I do something to someone I didn't know? or who I had never talked to?" You deny responsibility although you pled guilty.
The judge also recounted the details of the slaying.
"Today is about accountability for those choices that you made – the decision that you made to walk Mr. Works into an execution," McGunnigle said. "He was shot multiple times in his torso, his arm, his legs."
The defense, for their part, pushed for a sentence at the lower end of the scale based on Thomas' upbringing, post-arrest education, and age at the time of the crime. The minimum sentence in the Empire State for second-degree murder is 15 years behind bars.
The judge pushed back a bit there.
"You were only 17," she said. "Mr. Works was only 15. You both had your whole lives ahead of you."
The prosecution also rubbished those entreaties.
Assistant District Attorney Rob Moran dismissed the purportedly "awful and tragic and sad" story presented by the defense, taking particular aim at a section of a defense-commissioned pre-sentence report which contained "generic language" about the brain development of young men and their susceptibility to impulses.
"That is quite simply not this case," Moran intoned. "Three young men lured Karon Works into his death. They spent the greater part of half an hour with him, all clearly knowing exactly what the plan was, what their intent was, and that was to assassinate him about a half an hour later. This was not an impulsive act. This was a plan. This is a plan executed by these three men, one of whom stands here before you today."
The state pushed for the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison. In the end, with a nod to Thomas' life before his time as a killer, the judge largely sided with the state in meting out the punishment.
"I'm sorry about the upbringing that you've had," McGunnigle said before later noting that the defendant's life is not yet wholly decided. "Despite whatever sentence I give you, you still will have a life. You can continue in state prison to get these certificates to earn a degree so that once you are released, you can go on to be a better person and hopefully…go down the right path. But Mr. Works will never have the opportunity to do anything further in his life and his family will never have the opportunity to be with him. Therefore, you must be held accountable."
