John Jefferson
Background: Christie Parisien and Jaslyn Smith (Broward Sheriff’s Office). Inset: Andre Clements (Broward Sheriff’s Office).
As the lead defendant faces trial, two young women pleaded guilty and were sentenced on Thursday to helping him murder a teen over a romantic squabble. Christie Parisien, 20, and Jaslyn Smith, 19, are spending 25 years in prison, according to Miami NBC affiliate WTVJ.
As previously reported, authorities in Broward County, Florida, said that it was Parisien, then 17, who called and lured the victim, Dwight “DJ” Grant, 18, to a stairwell in their apartment complex. Then Smith and the lead defendant, Andre Clements, 17, ambushed him, attacking for 31 minutes, authorities said.
“You know I have to kill you now,” Clements allegedly said, grabbing a sword and stabbing Grant in the neck.
Grant told him to end it, police said. Clements allegedly stabbed him in the chest with the sword. The three teenagers carried the victim’s body and dumped it over a railing 30 feet from his apartment, cops said.
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“It’s horrifying, and he was such a good child” a neighbor told Fox Miami affiliate WSVN in 2021. “His mother loved him. I can’t even think something could happen like that. It’s terrifying.”
Authorities said that the motive for murder was that Grant had had sex with Clements’ ex-girlfriend, so Clements, now 20, recruited Parisien to help, and they together recruited Smith.
The young women pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence, and conspiracy to commit murder, but also to second-degree murder, which is down from the original crime of first-degree murder.
“I’ll never have a grandchild,” Grant’s mother, Madge Emile, said in court, according to WSVN. “All I could think of is that day, the way my son is. I will never see him grow up, how old he would be. We always had this tradition that, when we were going to bed, he would say, ‘Good night, Mom.’ I would say, ‘Good night, see you in the morning, I love you.’ I’ll never hear my son say he loves me.”
Clements’ trial for first-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree is set to begin Jan. 13.
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