2002 Lima, Ohio, apartment shooting

On the evening of January 3, 2002, half-brothers Cleveland Ramon Jackson Jr. (then 23) and Jeronique D. Cunningham (then 29) went to the Lima, Ohio, apartment of 28-year-old LaShane Liles, intending to rob him of money and drugs. Liles was not home when they arrived, but seven relatives and friends were present. When Liles returned, he discussed a drug transaction with Jackson while Cunningham watched television with three other occupants. Cunningham then drew a weapon and forced several occupants into the kitchen, striking one victim with his gun barrel. Jackson held Liles at gunpoint and took money and drugs from him. All eight occupants — Liles, Coron Liles, Dwight D. Goodlowe, Leneshia Williams, Jayla Grant, James Grant, Tomeaka J. Grant, and Armetta Robinson — were eventually gathered in the kitchen.

After Liles said he had no more money to give, Jackson shot him in the back, and both men then fired on the remaining occupants, including three-year-old Jayla Grant, despite pleas to spare her. Leneshia Williams, 17, died of a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, and Jayla Grant, 3, died of two gunshot wounds to the head. The other six victims were wounded but survived after hospitalization, sustaining injuries including loss of an eye, a fractured rib, facial gunshot wounds, and a head wound that left one victim comatose for weeks. Liles, though wounded, was able to call police.

Three days later, on January 6, 2002, police traced the brothers to a motel in Dayton, Ohio, where both surrendered. They were initially charged with felonious assault, and on January 11, 2002, a special Allen County grand jury indicted both men on two counts of aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications, aggravated robbery, and six counts of attempted aggravated murder.

Cunningham was tried first, before the Allen County Common Pleas Court; on June 19, 2002, a jury convicted him on all nine counts, and on June 26, 2002, Judge Richard Warren sentenced him to death. Jackson's trial followed in July 2002; his defense argued he fired only one shot and that Cunningham fired the fatal rounds, but a surviving victim testified that Jackson nodded to Cunningham before both men began shooting. On July 26, 2002, Jackson was convicted, and on August 5, 2002, Judge Jeffrey Reed sentenced him to death for both murders.

Both men pursued extensive appeals over the following two decades. The Ohio Supreme Court overturned one of Jackson's two death sentences in 2005 (re-sentencing him to life for Grant's murder while upholding death for Williams's murder), while Cunningham's sentence was repeatedly upheld, though litigation over alleged juror bias continued into the 2020s, including a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing further review. Jackson's execution date has been rescheduled multiple times by Ohio governors, most recently to June 13, 2029. As of 2026, both men remain incarcerated on death row at the Ross Correctional Institution. Separately, surviving victim LaShane Liles was arrested in March 2004 on unrelated cocaine trafficking charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison.