Man sentenced for ’05 murder
The 22-year-old who killed a local casino worker to see what it would feel like was sentenced to 34 years to life in prison Wednesday.
Jamar Green was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in May to first-degree murder and other charges in District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom.
Green and Terrence Bowser faced a potential death sentence in the January 2005 drive-by shooting of John A. McCoy, 60, a Rainbow Club & Casino shift manager.
Bowser, 21, is scheduled to plead guilty to first-degree murder and other charges later this month. He will receive a sentence of 28 years to life, the prosecutor and defense attorney said.
McCoy was driving to his northwest Las Vegas home from his shift at the casino when Bowser, driving his 1988 Lincoln Town Car, drove up alongside him near Lone Mountain Road and Decatur Boulevard.
Green leveled a shotgun at McCoy and fired, hitting McCoy and causing him to crash his vehicle into a wall. McCoy later died at University Medical Center.
His wife, Dawn, told the court her husband was a Vietnam veteran, country musician, father of three children, and never missed a day of work or a family event.
"Now that John is gone, our family is no longer whole, and a large part of me is gone," she said.
She described how he lived for his daughter, who is now 12.
He never got to learn that she won a scholarship to Faith Lutheran Jr. and Sr. High School and a collegiate scholarship to Concordia University in Irvine, Calif., Dawn McCoy said, and he missed her first church solo.
"I have to work two jobs, and I have to pick up the slack and do everything the two of us did before," she said.
As a law-abiding citizen, she said, she never suspected her life would be affected by senseless violence and a need "to fulfill an evil curiosity."
Green, 22, did not say anything during the hearing.
Bowser told Gates at a hearing Monday he did not set out that night to kill anyone but only intended to shoot into a car.
He said he aided and abetted Green.
His plea is scheduled for July 25.
