A 35-year-old Minneapolis man has been sentenced to a term of 30½ years after admitting this week that he shot and killed a woman sitting in a camper parked on a northside residential street last June.
Laundelle Jackson chose not to have a jury trial and instead pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder in Hennepin County District Court in the death of 42-year-old Taleen Rochelle Tanna.
With credit for time in jail since his arrest, Jackson is expected to serve nearly 30 years in prison and the balance on supervised release.
According to the charges:
A call to 911 about 9:50 a.m. June 14 sent police to the 1300 block of N. Girard Avenue, where they found Tanna on the front passenger floor of the RV. She was declared dead at the scene from gunshot wounds to the head and neck.
Marvin McCowen told officers he was Tanna's boyfriend and was behind the wheel of the vehicle when Jackson drove up to the driver's side and started shooting.
McCowen said that about a week earlier, he and Jackson had fought at a home in Minneapolis and that he had been stabbed in the chest in the fight while Jackson suffered facial injuries. Jackson, meanwhile, told police that McCowen had attacked him without provocation and that he had wrestled a knife away from his assailant.
When questioned about three weeks after the shooting, Jackson said he was in the backseat of the car from which the shots were fired into the camper. However, he said, someone else pulled the trigger.
