WILMINGTON — A young male will serve 27 to 34 years in prison for admitting to a 2022 murder of an 18-year-old.
READ MORE: 18-year-old murder suspect rejects plea deal in Tilghman-Deablo death
Twenty-year-old Damon Stackhouse of Wilmington pleaded guilty in a New Hanover County courthouse for second-degree murder and discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling.
Judge Kent Harrell oversaw the sentencing for Stackhouse to serve time in a North Carolina Department of Adult Correction.
Stackhouse is charged in connection to the Sept. 22, 2022 death of Jalin Tilghman-Deablo, who was shot 16 times at New Hanover Village Apartments. He is the first of three people tried in the shooting.
Witnesses described to law enforcement a group of people wore dark clothing and masks and left the scene in a black Ford Escape, also identifying the license plate number.
The vehicle was linked to Ja’Tayvian Hanible, found parked outside of co-defendant Jaquan Smith’s house on Ann Street. As law enforcement entered the residence, another co-defendent Labron Pryor was found inside, as were three guns linked to the shooting.
One gun — fired at least seven times at the victim — as well as bullet casings retrieved from the crime scene contained Stackhouse’s DNA.
Cases for co-defendants Pryor, Smith, and Hanible are still pending.
Assistant District Attorney Michael Chaney described in the release that Jailin’s shooting was “a tragedy” and a stark reminder how youth gun violence affects the community-at-large.
Assistant District Attorney Brad Matthews said the case hits on three areas of concern on the rise in recent months, community-wide: “proliferation of youth violence, gun violence, and gang violence.”
“This case represents a confluence of all three of those entities,” he said in a release from the DA’s office on Monday.
Jailin’s mother, Domanae, told WECT after her older son’s death in September 2022 that he was “hunted down” and murdered three doors down from their home. According to the DA office, the shooting is believed to be linked to gang retaliation.
“Earlier in the day, a gang associate of the defendant’s named Aiwon Davis was shot and injured near the intersection of South 14th and Ann Street,” the DA’s office explained in Monday’s release.
It’s not the first time the Diablo family has been linked to gang crime; four months before Jailin was murdered, his younger brother Chance, was sentenced by New Hanover County prosecutors to four years in prison. The then-16-year-old pleaded guilty to the 2021 shooting of student in the leg at New Hanover High School.
Mother Domanae told reporters after the shooting that Chance was a victim of constant bullying, even as late as a half-hour before the high school shooting. She claimed fellow students picked on Chance, as well as people who weren’t even New Hanover High School students that came to the campus. However, the school district failed to act.
District Attorney Ben David oversaw the case and tried Chance as an adult. He referred to Chance’s actions as gang violence and “community violence crossing the invisible barrier into the classroom.”
David — who is retiring from the DA’s office at the beginning of next month — stated in the release that the $5 million soon-to-be-opened Community Justice Center, funded by the New Hanover Community Endowment, will be place to help thwart the increase in shootings and amount of juveniles armed. He will serve as CEO and legal counsel.
“Resources will be dedicated to curbing youth violence specifically,” David said in the release. “Getting firearms out of the hands of violent criminals and our youth is a top priority for our agency.”
Last month, WPD Chief Donny Williams said shootings in 2024 have jumped from 48 to 61 incidents — roughly 31% — compared to the same period last year. In Monday’s release, he vowed for the police department to continue its focus on getting firearms out of the hands of youth.
“No mother should have to bury their child,” he said in the release, “and we will stop at nothing to ensure that justice is delivered in this murder case.”
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