DeKalb County (Ga.) Jail
A Georgia 18-year-old accepted a plea deal Monday and was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of a gamer who was trying to sell his PlayStation 4 over Craigslist, the Washington Post reports.
Daniel Zeitz had put his PlayStation up for sale on Craigslist for $280 and met with his potential buyer in the parking lot of his Roswell, Ga., apartment building in order to complete the deal.
Zeitz approached his potential buyers in their car—a young man in the front seat, his teenage girlfriend in the passenger's seat and a 16-month-old baby in the backseat. The gamer showed his console to the young man, who then tried to take the machine away from him. During the struggle, the teenage girlfriend, Kayla Dixon, grabbed a .25-caliber handgun and fired one shot, piercing her boyfriend's hand and hitting Zietz in the chest, killing him, the Post notes.
According to the Post, Monday was supposed to be the first day of Dixon's trial, but as jury selection was about to start, she opted to take a plea deal and apologized to Zeitz's family.
“I would trade anything, almost anything, to bring Daniel back. But I know I can’t,” Dixon said, the Post reports. “I know he had plans. I wish I could tell him I’m so, so sorry that this happened, but I can’t.”
The night Dixon shot Zeitz, she and her boyfriend, Nathaniel Vivian, went to a hospital to treat his wound, claiming that he was the victim of a robbery. Vivian later admitted at the hospital what the couple had done, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and they were arrested.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution later published another report, detailing that the pair had planned out the crime.
“There were numerous text messages between Dixon and Vivian discussing plans to rob someone,” Detective David Lapides testified back in 2014. “They discussed getting the address. How they wanted to do it—come at him with the gun [or] surprise him and catch him when he came outside. Go inside the apartment. These messages went back and forth for a while.”
On Monday, Dixon's lawyer told the judge that Dixon had a troubled childhood that included rape and relationships with men who were involved in criminal activity, but acknowledged that Dixon's past did not excuse her crime, the Post notes.
Zeitz's mother told WSB-TV that she accepted the apology Dixon prepared.
“At first, I didn’t want to accept her apology. I thought her apology today was very heartfelt and I feel like she is truly sorry for what happened,” Patty Zeitz told the station. “It’s just a crime that young people can get caught in these situations because of the examples they’d had in their lives.
“I hope it stays with her and she becomes a better person and able to contribute when she finally does get out,” Zeitz's father, John, added.
Vivian is scheduled to be tried later this year, and Dixon's attorney told the judge that her client is willing to testify against him if asked, WSB-TV reports.