LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Over three years after being involved in a shooting that killed a little girl in her home, Marquis Thurman has been sentenced to prison.
Thurman was sentenced to 18 years in prison in connection to the 2016 shooting death of two-year-old Nova Gallman on Thursday.
Thurman was previously charged in 2017 with murder, first-degree assault, wanton endangerment and first-degree robbery. Thurman later pled guilty to lesser charges.
Thurman was one of two men that were armed when they went to a home on Kenton Street to buy drugs. After an argument broke out at the front door Gallman was hit by a stray bullet. Gallman later died at UK Hospital.
Thurman was given an additional five year sentence for evidence tampering, but that will run concurrent to the time he'll serve on the manslaughter sentence, something Thurman's defense attorney Joanne Lynch argued for.
"These cases aren't horse races. Nobody wins," Lynch said. "In many ways everybody loses because a young girl lost her life and we haven't forgotten about that and are not unsypathetic to that. We'd like to heartily say we're sorry to everyone who loved Nova Gallman."
Before sentencing Thurman, Judge Julie Goodman said he destroyed not only the lives of those who loved Gallman, but those of his two children who are ages three and four. Thurman's two children will now spend most of their childhood without a father.
