GOLDEN, Colo. — Two adults and two juveniles have all been sentenced for their roles in the killing of two brothers who had agreed to meet to sell a "ghost gun" at a Lakewood Walmart in 2020, the First Judicial District Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
Marqueil Banks, now 18, was sentenced Tuesday to life sentences, one for each of the victims after he was found guilty on March 31 of two counts of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery. The sentences are to be served consecutively, however due to his age at the time of the crime, he would be eligible for parole after 40 years.
Banks is the last of four defendants in the case to be convicted. All four were juveniles at the time of the crime. Two of them were tried as adults, and two remained in juvenile court.
>The video above aired in 2020 when the shooting happened.
The investigation by agents from the Lakewood Police Department revealed that on Aug. 23, 2020, Damien and Dillon Wikoff arranged to sell a homemade ‘ghost gun’ assembled from a kit they purchased online, as well as trade for another gun. Instead, Michael Mendoza recruited a group of juveniles to rob the brothers during the meeting at the store on West Colfax Avenue. During the robbery, Damien and Dillon were shot and killed by Banks.
Mendoza pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2022, to aggravated robbery and manslaughter and faced 10-25 years in the department of corrections. On April 27, he was sentenced to 20.5 years.
In May 2021, a third juvenile, age 15 at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery and received two years of juvenile intensive supervised probation.
In April 2022, a fourth juvenile, age 15 at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received four years in the department of youth services.
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