Two men in Ohio were convicted Tuesday for their involvement in a murder-for-hire plot during a fake gender-reveal party that resulted in an innocent victim being shot and killed, Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
As a gender-reveal party for Cheyanne Willis was winding down on July 8, 2017, James Echols, 26, and Michael Sanon, 24, stepped inside the home after 11 p.m. and opened fire. Willis’ cousin, Autum Garrett, and eight others were injured. According to Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Allison Oswall, Echols and Sanon were hired to kill Willis, who claimed she lost the baby as a result of the shooting, only to later confess that she was never pregnant.
Willis was allegedly having an affair with a suspected drug dealer named Roshawn Bishop, whom she loaned $10,000, and started pressuring him to pay her back. Bishop enlisted Echols and Sanon to carry out the killing. Among those injured, included a one-year-old who was shot in the knee and arm, and a three-year-old who was struck in the head and both legs. Both children survived.
Echols’ attorney Angela Glaser tried to argue that he was at a nightclub when the shooting occurred, however, cellphone records show he sent a text message pleading that he needed “4 or 5 people to say they seen me.” Glaser suggested that he was either “framed for this, or this is the worst case of the wrong-place-wrong-time that I have ever heard of.”
Bishop later testified that he paid Echols and Sanon $1,500 to kill Willis to avoid repaying her. He’s also facing murder charges.
Echols was found guilty on all 22 charges he faced, including aggravated murder. Sanon was found guilty on an attempted murder charge.
