The final defendant in a December 2012 murder was sentenced Friday in Suffolk Circuit Court.

Michael Jamil Eason, 30, of Sunbury, N.C., will serve 12 years for his part in the shooting death of 27-year-old William Kendale Jordan on Dec. 17, 2012.

Jordan was shot multiple times in the garage of his Dutch Road home about 2 a.m. in what testimony has revealed was a botched robbery.

Eason traveled from North Carolina with Akeem Deshawn Lee Lassiter and Cassius Quamaine Norfleet that night intending to commit a robbery.

While Lassiter stayed in the car, Norfleet and Eason entered the home. Jordan shot at the intruders but missed. Norfleet returned fire, killing Jordan.

“I believe 100 percent that nobody went there that night expecting or thinking to kill someone,” Judge L. Wayne Farmer said. “But isn’t it just expected that person is going to resist in some way?”

Eason’s mother, Joann Eason, testified during Friday’s hearing that her son had always been a follower.

“I always told him, ‘You need to get a backbone,’” she said.

Prosecutor Will Jamerson gave Eason credit for cooperating with the investigation and taking a plea agreement, which reduced the original first-degree murder charge to second-degree and got rid of a charge of shoot, stab, cut or wound.

“He’s given himself a chance to be on the road to redemption, but that road to redemption starts with society’s retribution,” Jamerson said.

Public Defender James Grandfield asked for a low sentence, noting Eason’s cooperation and lack of a criminal record.

Eason said during the hearing that he wanted to apologize to the Jordan family and to his own mother.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said.

Farmer called the 12 years — with 36 years suspended — a fair sentence.

“Your choice was to be as involved as you could be without pulling the trigger,” Farmer said. But he added, “It takes into consideration that you cooperated. I take into consideration you seem to have taken some form of responsibility.”

Norfleet received an active sentence of 57 years earlier this month. Lassiter got eight years in June, receiving considerable credit for being what Jamerson called the “case-breaker” — the one who originally came forward months after the crime to reveal what happened to Jordan.