An Augusta teen who fatally shot his sister while playing with a gun was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison.
Tyquan Dukes, 18, pleaded guilty in Richmond County Superior Court to involuntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. While Judge John Flythe couldn’t go as far as to impose only probation for Dukes, he did sentence Dukes under the First Offender Act. Once released from the prison term Dukes will have an additional six years on probation.
On the evening of Sept. 22, 2021, Dukes was at a relative’s home on Central Avenue with his sister Meshela Dukes, 18. She was shot in the head.
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“I never got a chance to apologize to my family,” Dukes said Monday, Nov. 28, during his sentencing hearing. He and his siblings had been through so much growing up, and he would never have intentionally hurt his sister, he said. To know he caused her death shames him and breaks his heart every day, he said.
Dukes and his siblings were raised by their grandparents. He was 15 when his grandfather, James Dukes, 60, was shot to death in their front yard when he tried to break up a fight between neighbors in April 2019, defense attorney Kelly Williamson said. His death greatly affected Dukes.
His grandmother, and his biological father who didn’t know he had a son until recently, spoke on Dukes’ behalf, asking for a probation term. He was redeemable, and they wanted to be there for him. They pleaded for a chance. Prison, they said, would do nothing good.
When asked by the judge where he got the gun, Dukes said he had gotten it about two weeks earlier from a friend of a friend who he played basketball with.
“I wish I had never met him,” Dukes said.
