Alleged gang member sentenced for killing three people in two days at same location
On the day his trial was to begin, Master Titus Martin pleaded guilty to killing three people along East Colfax within two days. Martin immediately received a sentence of 60 years in prison - 20 years for each of the killings.
With the plea, Martin admitted to fatally shooting Percil Walls on July 5, 2020, and Crystal Lockhart and Moses Hamm two days later.
All were murdered near the intersection of East Colfax Avenue at North Beeler Street.
"Every year on 7/7, I go hand out gift cards to those that walk in her shoes," Julie Ernst, Lockhart's sister, told CBS News Colorado. "I put up those photos and candle on the corner of Beeler and Colfax where she died."
"The sentence was not as long as we would have liked," Ernst continued, "but we are praying that if he should see the outside world again, the lives of others weigh more significant on him. He has shown no remorse and that is disheartening. Also, Crystal was seven months pregnant at the time her took her life. She left behind four children. Moses left behind one and Percil left behind seven. Just so sad."
Per police reports, Walls was found lying on the ground at 1:45 a.m. on the 5th. He passed away at a hospital.
Police found Lockhart and Hamm shortly after midnight on the 7th, Lockhart also lying on the ground. She had been shot in the head. Hamm was found seated in a nearby car. Lockhart was pronounced at the scene. Hamm died later at a hospital.
Investigators from the Aurora Police Department handled both incidents. Martin was arrested two months later. He was 21 years old at the time of the shootings.
An accomplice, Dontavious Hetzel (29 years old at the time), was arrested in February of 2021 in Georgia. Hetzel's case proceeded through the courts faster than Martin's. Hetzel pleaded guilty to two counts of being an accessory to a felony crime and was sentenced to five years in community corrections.
Martin was sentenced January 17.
CBS News Colorado has learned Martin was also suspected of shooting at a group of people the evening of July 5, 2020, in Denver. This would have occurred after the murder of Walls, and would mean Martin pulled the trigger three times in that two-day stretch of violence.
Witnesses describe Martin as the rear-seat passenger in a vehicle who leaned out the window and fired five or six shots at people patronizing a food cart at East 50th Avenue and Crown Boulevard in Montbello. One man was shot in the arm.
Several of those witnesses described Martin as a member of a gang.
A judge signed DPD's warrant for Martin's arrest on July 16.
The Denver District Attorney's Office charged Martin with attempted murder, and he was convicted of three counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault. Martin was then sentenced to 60 years in prison.
