Man sentenced for role in fatal shooting of 60-year-old woman

A 22-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 20 to 50 years in prison for his part in the 2018 fatal shooting of a 60-year-old woman outside her northwest Las Vegas home.

Kamari Collins pleaded guilty in December to first-degree murder, court records show. His co-defendant, Tyran Mollett, was sentenced Dec. 13 to 32 years to life in prison for fatally shooting Sheri Aoyagi after robbing her home with Collins.

A jury in October convicted Mollett of murder with a deadly weapon of a victim 60 or older, attempted murder with a deadly weapon of a victim 60 or older, conspiracy to commit burglary, burglary while in possession of a gun and discharging a firearm at or into an occupied vehicle, court records show.

Aoyagi and her husband, Stanley, returned home from eating lunch on May 30, 2018, to discover their home had been burglarized and that Mollett and Collins were still at the home. Collins was 18 at the time, while Mollett was 17 years old.

Police said Mollett shot and killed Sheri Aoyagi in front of her husband, and fired another shot that narrowly missed Stanley Aoyagi.

The teenagers fled the scene after the shooting, and were later arrested in Palmdale, California, police said.

During Mollett’s sentencing hearing in December, District Judge Tierra Jones said Sheri Aoyagi was fatally shot so that the co-defendants would “leave no witnesses behind.”

“The acts in this case were just down-right awful,” Jones said during Collins’ sentencing hearing on Friday, later adding that it was something she will “never forget.”

Collins told the judge that it was never his intention for “anyone to be harmed.”

“Unfortunately this is a situation that nobody involved can truly win from,” he said while appearing in court through a video call.

Sheri Aoyagi’s sister and husband both addressed the judge during Mollett and Collins’ sentencing hearings, and have described the 60-year-old as a kind, hard-working woman who took care of others. She loved her job as a flight attendant and volunteered at an animal shelter in her free time, said her sister, Karen Hasting.

“She was going to retire around this time and enjoy life, and there’s nothing in this world that can bring her back,” Hasting said Friday.

Both Hasting and Stanley Aoyagi told the judge they doubted any remorse expressed by Collins, who pleaded guilty after Mollett had been convicted.

“He only cares about himself and not about what he’s done, and that’s why I feel he’s making that plea,” Stanley Aoyagi said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.