'Following the crowd:' Teen defendant went to collect 60 bucks. It cost him dearly
- Jamie Duffy
- Jul 24
- 3 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---When it came time for Devon Stewart to speak, he tried to explain why he shot an 86-year-old woman standing inside her front door, defenseless, around 10:30 p.m. on June 1 of last year.
Just 18, no place to call home, according to a probable cause affidavit, he was just “following the crowd” and didn’t realize until later the “severity” of his actions.
“I was just trying to impress,” he told Allen Superior Court Judge David Zent Friday at his sentencing for the murder of Alice Hall. “I didn’t really think about who I was hurting.”
At the mic, a relative of Hall’s reminded him of the life he took and the impact it had on her family.
“My 13-year-old son watched his grandmother go (out of her home) in a body bag. I cleaned up that crime scene,” the woman said who is related to the victim by marriage. “Alice deserved to die peacefully in her old age.”
The circumstances of Hall’s death are shocking and yet, all too familiar. Stewart and an accomplice, William Britt, Jr., almost 20, who is scheduled to be sentenced next week drove up to the home in the 900 block of Colerick Street on the city’s southeast side so that Stewart could collect on a $60 debt, court documents said.
At 10:27:19, the fatal knock at the door occurs, the “motion activated camera” catching Stewart standing there.
Stewart then retreated from the front porch and consulted with Britt, both of them standing between two vehicles in the driveway.
As if the two were playing hide and seek, they crouch down at the vehicles until Stewart goes back up to the front porch, all on video.
Although no report states gunshots are heard after Stewart leaves the porch, it’s certainly a logical conclusion that that is what took place.
And Stewart admitted to being the shooter when he pleaded guilty to the homicide, according to Allen County Chief Counsel Tesa Helge.
Had he gone to trial and been convicted, the sentence would have been longer. Murder carries a sentence of between 45 and 65 years with an advisory of 55 years, set by the Indiana state legislature. Using a gun can add up to 20 years on to a sentence.
The tragedy is not only that several grieving members of an elderly woman’s family have to sit in a courtroom and relive the drama that took away their loved one in one brief second, but that a young man, with no place to live, thought he had to shoot someone over 60 bucks.
If William Britt, Jr. is to be believed, Stewart uttered these words taken directly from the probable cause written by FWPD homicide detective Jean Gigli:
“William went on to state once he observed the porch light come on, he heard an elderly lady’s voice state, “Who’s there?” William stated he told Devon Stewart it was an old lady at which time Devon replied ‘I’m gonna smoke that bitch’.”
The lone speaker at the mic said she’d already been through a similar situation and at that time, she contemplated taking her own life. Her words were forceful and angry and she admitted to being angry, but her feelings were complicated Friday morning.
“Now that you sit here, I feel sorry for you because you’re just a kid,” she said.
A year later, Stewart, 19, still has two years to go before he can walk into a liquor store and purchase alcohol.
But that won’t happen for years to come. If you want alcohol in an Indiana prison, you have to make it yourself. It’s easier to get drugs and it’s unbelievable how many people will tell you the drug trade is rampant in prison.
“I was barely 18,” Stewart said in his statement and no one in the courtroom was sure he ever said he was sorry, but he was respectful.
Before being brought into court, Stewart attempted a no show at his own sentencing, but a new Indiana law requires a convicted defendant to come to court.
According to a sheriff’s spokesman, there was no trouble getting him there the second time when he was reminded of his civic duty.
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