Man gets life terms for slaying

SEATTLE – A man convicted of shooting his half-sister, niece and grandniece to death in their beds because of a feud over an inheritance has been sentenced to three life terms in prison.

Melvin Marcus Johnson Jr., 35, was sentenced Friday amid tears, rage-filled accusations and his protestations of innocence.

Police and prosecutors said Johnson killed his half sister, Patricia Whitfield-Ingram, after a long-running and bitter feud over the inheritance of their late mother’s house. He killed her 24-year-old daughter, Artis “TZ” Ingram, and Ingram’s 6-year-old daughter, Champagne Younger, they said, simply because they were with Whitfield-Ingram that night.

At the sentencing hearing in the courtroom of King County Superior Court Judge Douglas North, several of Johnson’s relatives scorned him, particularly for the killing of the little girl, and others said he was no longer kin.

“What you done is unbelievable,” said Whitfield-Ingram’s son, John Ingram Jr. “We have been waiting for five years and we are done today with you.”

As the younger Ingram spoke, Johnson pounded his fist on the table and called out, “I didn’t do it, man! I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill my family! I’m innocent.”

In meting out the mandatory sentence of three life terms, North said that despite Johnson’s protestation to the contrary, there was an abundance of evidence against him.