A Maryland teenager was sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting a father unloading soccer balls from his vehicle. Kai Wilson, now 17, entered an Alford plea to attempted second-degree murder in the 2024 attack.
The shooting occurred on September 13, 2024, in an alley behind a home on Dunkirk Road in Rodgers Forge, a Baltimore suburb. Wilson, then 15, approached Mark McKenzie with a handgun, demanded money, struck him and fired once into his midsection.
McKenzie suffered wounds to his gallbladder and liver. He spent 12 days on life support at Johns Hopkins Hospital and required multiple surgeries. A GoFundMe campaign for his recovery has collected more than $139,000.
Baltimore County court records show Wilson received a 40-year term with all but 25 years suspended. Co-defendant Kamar Thompson, who drove the getaway car, was sentenced to 25 years.
At the hearing McKenzie told Wilson, "Your decisions that day were deadly. I'm only alive because Johns Hopkins brought me back after I coded." Wilson's public defender cited his client's difficult upbringing, including homelessness at age nine.