WASHINGTON — Three Washington, D.C., men were sentenced on Friday for their involvement in the December 2018 shooting of a father and his minor son in the Clay Terrace neighborhood of Northeast Washington, according to an announcement by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, and FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge David Geist.
Jamal Matthews, 34, received a 26-year prison sentence, which includes an additional five years for obstruction of justice related to the case. Darnell Savoy, 25, was sentenced to nine years in prison, which will be served consecutively to a previous five-year sentence for a federal firearms and drug trafficking offense.
Stefon Freshley, 28, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
The sentencing follows the trio’s guilty pleas on March 29, 2024, before Superior Court Judge Michael O’Keefe.
The guilty pleas stemmed from a December 28, 2018, incident in which Matthews, Savoy, and Freshley targeted the victims in a mistaken act of retaliation. Matthews mistook the victims’ SUV for a vehicle involved in an earlier shooting on Christmas Day that left Matthews unharmed but resulted in the death of his cousin.
On the night of the shooting, Matthews spotted the victims’ vehicle parked along the curb in the 200 block of 54th Street Northeast. Believing it to be the same vehicle from the earlier incident, Matthews called for backup. Freshley and Savoy, who were nearby, picked up Matthews in Savoy’s Nissan Altima. Matthews, armed with an assault rifle, fired approximately 30 shots at the victims’ SUV as they drove by.
The minor victim suffered nine gunshot wounds, including to the head, abdomen, chest, and back. The adult victim sustained gunshot injuries to his leg and hand. Despite the severity of the attack, both victims survived.
The sentences handed down mark the conclusion of a long-running case that has seen multiple legal proceedings, including federal charges unrelated to the shooting for one of the defendants.
