BINGHAMPTON, Tenn. — Exactly five months to the day after his murder, a 23-year-old man has been arrested and charged in the July killing of Mario Lofton, 36.
Donvoe Sanders is facing several charges in Lofton’s death, including second-degree murder.
Police said he had been on the run for months.
According to the arrest affidavit, witnesses picked Sanders from a lineup, telling investigators he shot Lofton on Faxon Avenue on the morning of July 16.
#BREAKING: Donvoe Sanders, 23, has been arrested and charged in the July murder of Mario Lofton, 36. Investigators have been searching for him since July, when he was identified by witnesses from a lineup. @3onyourside pic.twitter.com/6WSHU70ys6
— Nina Harrelson (@NinaHarrelsonTV) December 17, 2017
Police say Lofton was found laying on the sidewalk in front of a house, where he ran for help.
He later died at the hospital.
No one answered the door at the address listed for Sanders in online court records, and neighbors didn’t know him.
“It lets you know you don’t never know who’s living next door to you no more, so you’ve gotta be careful nowadays. It’s just scary,” said neighbor Leon Jordan.
Lofton is the third of his siblings to be killed in Memphis in the past six years.
His brother, James Stokes, was also shot and killed in 2011.
And eight months later, his sister, Ranita Burke, was stabbed to death by her own husband.
Ironically, Lofton spoke to WREG in 2014, two years after his sister’s murder, not knowing that a few years later his mother would be fighting for justice in his murder.
“I love her, I miss her,” Lofton said. “I have to look at her kids to see her. I have to look at my mom and it’s hard. I couldn’t defend my sister.”
Today their mother, Priscilla Taylor, who also spoke to WREG in 2014, is caring for the five children they left behind.
“Most of them – the women that are killed – they leave children,” she said. “What about these children? They grow up without a mother, sometimes a father, too, because you lose both of them.”
Police haven’t said what may have motivated Sanders to allegedly kill Lofton.
Sanders is being held on a $300,000 bond.
His first court appearance is set for 9 a.m. Monday morning.
Lofton’s mother has a GoFundMe page set up for help with the five grandchildren she’s now raising.
