A Rochester man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for murdering two people on a front porch. Jermaine Williams, 25, shot and killed Shatina Jones and Timothy Chealey in May 2024 after a dispute at a concert. The sentencing came after a jury convicted him last month on multiple murder counts.
Jermaine Williams was sentenced on Wednesday to life without parole by a Monroe County court. The 25-year-old had been found guilty last month of two counts each of first-degree and second-degree murder in the deaths of 46-year-old Shatina Jones and 43-year-old Timothy Chealey. A third person was wounded but survived the attack on May 6, 2024, at a home in Rochester, New York, according to the Monroe County District Attorney's Office. Williams fled the scene but was captured in a neighboring county by U.S. Marshals. The shootings followed an altercation Williams had with someone at a Sexyy Red concert earlier that evening at the Blue Cross Arena. Williams then followed that individual to the house where Jones and Chealey stood on the front porch. Jones, from Buffalo, had been visiting her daughter in Rochester for her birthday and was staying overnight at a longtime friend's home. She stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when the gunfire began, her sister Andrea Tripp told WHAM. The relationship between Jones and Chealey was not specified. Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Adam VanHeyst described the incident in a statement after the conviction. 'What should have remained a minor dispute at a concert turned into a calculated and cowardly act of retaliation,' VanHeyst said. He added that Williams 'made a conscious decision to arm himself and open fire on a porch full of individuals — killing Timothy Chealey and Shatina Jones, one of whom had nothing to do with the earlier altercation.'