Datwain Crudup, 29, laughed as he was handed a life sentence on Thursday for his role in the ‘firestorm ambush’ that killed 19-year-old Nickolas Cowans, 24-year-old Kevin Williams, and injured Williams’s brother in Ohio earlier this year.
A court found Crudrup guilty last month of four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, felonious assault, and firearms violations. His sentence allows for the possibility of parole after 46 years.
The sentencing hearing on Thursday experienced several delays as family members of the victims needed time to regain their composure before proceeding with their pre-sentence statements.
During one of these pauses, Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies had to move Crudup to another table in the courtroom due to his continuous laughter and glances toward the victims’ families.
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On April 3, 2021, authorities say Crudup was in a vehicle that circled an apartment building on the 900 block of Eaton Avenue on the city’s West Side, firing shots indiscriminately out the window.
Prosecutors stated that Crudup “created a firestorm” which resulted in the deaths of Cowans and Williams and left another man seriously injured. Following the shooting, Crudup, who was on parole for a 2012 case involving burglary and aggravated robbery, fled to California.
“The fact that he could laugh at these women … is the most gross thing I’ve ever seen. Zero has been learned from this,” said Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Leigh Bayer. “To have the person who is responsible for their deaths, laugh in their (families’) faces during their sentencing is just unfathomable.”
Bayer revealed that the victims were unaware of their impending fate until they heard the gunshots. “He has not spent any reasonable time in society without some type of violence occurring. That’s what scares me. This man would be perfectly capable of doing the same thing again tomorrow,” Bayer expressed.
Bruce McCaskill, Cowans’ grandfather, admitted that despite being an ordained minister, he struggles to let go of his hatred towards Crudup.
“To murder people in broad daylight, it shows an evilness that we shouldn’t have to live with that we shouldn’t have to be around,” McCaskill stated. “You have put my soul at stake because there’s no forgiveness. It hurts for me to have to set aside everything I have preached and I have taught because I can’t get this hatefulness out of my heart.”
Ebony Williams, sister of victim Williams, shared that her family will never be the same after losing her brother and having another relative injured in the shooting. She found it hard to believe that Crudup, a father himself, could inflict such pain on other families.
“I’m pretty sure you don’t want nobody to take yours,” she said. “And you took yourself from your own.”
