Inset: Ja’Quan Dontremique Green (Prince George’s County Police). Background: The McDonald’s where Green killed an employee in May 2022 (Google Maps).
A 25-year-old Maryland man may spend the rest of his days in prison for killing a McDonald’s worker when he shot into the restaurant’s drive-thru window and struck the victim, who was building Happy Meal boxes.
Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Elizabeth S. Morris on Wednesday sentenced Ja’Quan Dontremique Green to life in a state correctional facility plus 20 years for the 2022 slaying of 23-year-old Britrain Marcelus Gray, authorities announced.
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Morris, who did not preclude the possibility of eventual parole, handed down the sentence after a jury in January found Green guilty on one count each of first-degree murder and use of a firearm in a crime of violence.
“This senseless violence stole a young man’s life while he was working the overnight shift at the drive-through window,” State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said in a statement. “Though nothing can undo this tragedy, I hope this sentence brings some measure of peace and closure to Britrain’s family, many of whom endured seeing the horrific evidence of their brother gunned down while he was building Happy Meal boxes for kids.”
Gray was working at the McDonald’s in the 1100 block of Crain Highway South shortly before 5 a.m. on May 13, 2022, when someone approached the drive-thru window and shot him, the state’s attorney’s office said in a news release.
Upon arriving at the McDonald’s, first responders found Gray inside the restaurant’s cash booth area with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation linked Green to the shooting through ballistic evidence and surveillance footage.
“Upon reviewing the surveillance video, detectives observed a black sedan pull around the exterior of the McDonald’s, with no tag and blacked-out windows,” prosecutors wrote. “A short time later, investigators observed a suspect park the car and walk up to the McDonald’s drive-thru window where he then fired three shots from a nine mm handgun at close range as the victim was working inside. The suspect then fled on foot back to his vehicle.”
Authorities arrested Green on July 7, 2022, on unrelated charges and recovered a handgun from his vehicle, a black 2001 Cadillac Catera.
Firearms examiners determined the handgun matched the three 9 mm shell casings recovered outside the McDonald’s drive-thru window, prosecutors said. Investigators also found a decal on Green’s Cadillac that corresponded with one visible on the vehicle captured by surveillance cameras at the restaurant.
Green’s social media accounts also showed him wearing clothing similar to that worn by the shooter, including boots and a jacket, both of which were lined with fur. A search of his bedroom later turned up similar items of clothing.
At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors offered little explanation for why Gray was targeted. Assistant State’s Attorney Glen Neubauer said there was either no motive or one that was “flat-out stupid,” The Baltimore Banner reported.
Neubauer said Gray may have appeared in a social media video, made by a relative, that mocked someone Green knew or the neighborhood where he lived.
Green maintained his innocence at sentencing, with his lawyer reportedly asking the court to give him a chance at parole.
“Respectfully, I cannot take responsibility for something I did not do,” Green said.
Morris did grant Green’s request, reportedly referring to life without parole as “essentially a death sentence” and adding that Green was “a child” at the time of the killing.
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