Left: Janaya Baker (GoFundMe). Right: Malik Coleman (Reno police).
A Nevada man will spend decades behind bars after he murdered his ex-girlfriend because she removed him from the lease at her apartment.
Malik Coleman, 20, was sentenced Monday to life in prison for the murder of 18-year-old Janaya Baker in Reno. He'll be eligible for parole after serving 28 years, the Washoe County District Attorney's Office said in a press release.
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Reno police responded shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 16, 2023, to an apartment building on North Virginia Street for a shooting. When cops arrived, they found Baker lying just outside of her room with a gunshot wound to her head. She was pronounced dead. Investigators learned that Coleman and Baker had been dating but she broke up with him about two weeks before the shooting. She also removed his name from the lease.
Surveillance video showed Coleman enter Baker's apartment around 5 p.m. while Baker was at work. He waited for more than two hours for her to come home. Audio captured Baker asking Coleman, "What are you doing here?" followed by a gunshot. Coleman was seen leaving the apartment a short time later. He also texted Baker's mother that she had been shot.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Nicole Hicks asked the judge to impose the life sentence with the chance at parole.
"Not one year, not one minute, or one second less," she said.
Baker turned 18 about two months before the shooting.
"She had her whole life ahead of her," her cousin wrote on GoFundMe.