Teen Sentenced to 55 Years in Milton Street Homicide; Still Claims He Was Framed

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Ayden Lee sat in his orange jail uniform, his hands and feet cuffed, and wept into his hands during his sentencing Friday.

He cried when his mother went to the microphone to implore Magistrate Sam Keirns, the sentencing judge, to consider his age and general gentleness with his siblings. He was a good boy. That's how she knew him.

But Ayden, now just 15, will spend 55 years in an Indiana prison for the shooting death of 17-year-old Mario “Mookie” Smith, who was killed Oct. 29 last year in a party house on Milton Drive.

Mookie had the misfortune of accompanying his friend to the house where the friend's girlfriend, 13-year-old Alexis Sims, was living with her semi-aged father.

She apparently invited her two suitors, but said nothing to them, according to court testimony. Lee was convicted by a jury in May.

Ayden claimed he was trapped that night while sitting in his ex-girlfriend's upstairs bedroom and the two older boys came upstairs to tell him that he had to leave, at Sims' request.

A confrontation ensued and Ayden pulled out a 9mm pistol and shot Mario. He said he felt threatened. When police arrived, Smith was on the ground, where he took his last breath.

Lee's attorney, Robert Scremin, said he was disappointed the jury didn't rule Lee's decision as self-defense. The image of a 14-year-old being overpowered by two 17-year-olds came to mind.

But as Assistant District Attorney Tasha Lee argued, Lee was the one who brought the gun. And Keirns, looking through Lee's file, saw that he had been tried as a juvenile for possession of a firearm, a case that had been dismissed just two weeks before the killing.

Latania Menzies, Smith's aunt, said the family accepted the 55-year prison sentence – murder carries a prison sentence of 45 to 65 years in this state – and that they felt sorry for Lee's mother.

Katie Fell, his cousin, Jovanna Smith, his sister, and Brenda Lee, his grandmother, spoke to Keirns about the loss it meant to him to lose Mookie. He was the protector of his sisters, the kid who told everyone he loved them, the guy who withdrew after watching his mother die of a seizure when he was younger.

The fact that he had started socialising and had a girlfriend made it all the more difficult to accept that his life had been tragically cut short.

“They're giving a lot of time for these things,” Smith's uncle Clay Washington said after the sentencing. “This kid just lost 55 years of his life for a mistake he could have just said in words.”

His message to parents was clear.

“If you know your teenage child is at home and you know he has a gun in your house or is out here doing things he shouldn't be doing, explain to him that he gives 55 and over for free to these young guys. If you care enough about your child, talk to your child about it. Don't allow your child to do things that you know you would want better for them.

“You don't want them out here killing people, stealing from people, taking things from hard-working people, taking family members that they love away from here,” Washington said .

Go through their rooms, their phones and their social media, Washington said.

“You are their parents. »