ST. LOUIS – An 18-year-old appeared in St. Louis Circuit Court on Monday and admitted to a 2023 fatal shooting after reaching a plea agreement with city prosecutors.
Tabari A. Freeman Jr., 18, pleaded guilty to second-degree involuntary manslaughter for the Oct. 24, 2023, shooting death of Calvin Kelly. The shooting happened in the 4800 block of Shreve Avenue in the city’s Mark Twain neighborhood.
Police and prosecutors said Kelly was found with a gunshot wound to his head. Kelly was rushed to a hospital, but he later died from his injuries. He was 20.
Freeman, who was 16 at the time of the killing, was arrested in December 2023. He escaped from the city’s Juvenile Detention Center on Feb. 3, 2024, but was located and returned to custody later that month.
After being certified to stand trial as an adult in April 2024, Freeman was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and two counts of armed criminal action. However, the Circuit Attorney’s Office dismissed three of those counts and reduced the murder charge to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for Freeman’s plea.
On Monday, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Katherine Fowler accepted the plea deal and sentenced Freeman to three years in Missouri state prison. Under Missouri law, the maximum sentence for second-degree involuntary manslaughter is four years imprisonment.
Freeman apologized for the shooting.
After the sentence was announced, Kelly’s mother, grandmother, and twin brother said they were still grieving and did not believe three years was a long enough sentence. Judge Fowler expressed empathy for Kelly’s family and told them she understood why they felt they were denied justice.