28-year-old sentenced to 70 years in prison for murder, robbery
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — One of the two men accused in a shooting death and robbery in 2021 at a west side apartment complex was sentenced Friday to 70 years in prison, prosecutors say.
Jeffrey Herald, 42, died in the Nov. 27, 2021, shooting in the 5400 block of Pleasant Hill Circle. That’s in the Pangea Hills Apartments of West Vermont Street west of North Lynhurst Drive.
A jury in April convicted Tavaris R. Jackson, 28, of two counts of murder, and two counts of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury. Judge Mark D. Stoner of Marion Superior Court 32 sentenced Jackson.
Online state prison records show Jackson was previously convicted on three counts of burglary out of Monroe County, and sentenced in 2015, 2019 and 2022.
The judge in November accepted a plea deal for Laseanne Strode. He pleaded guilty to robbery resulting in serious bodily injury. He was 23 when he was arrested at Dec. 26, 2021, at Indianapolis International Airport after he departed a plane, police said.
Cellphone data placed Jackson and Strode at the crime scene during the murder. Cellphone, social media, and a witness who overheard the robbery being planned had helped to determine what led to the shooting.
