Left inset: Jontae Watkins (WEWS). Right inset: Ernestine Stallings (Rhoden Memorial Home). Background: The Dollar Tree in Akron, Ohio, where Jontae Watkins shot and killed Ernestine Stallings as she was loading birthday balloons into a car (Google Maps).
An Ohio man has been handed a life sentence for gunning down a random woman with an AR-15 as she was loading birthday balloons into her car, with prosecutors saying it was a deadly case of mistaken identity. The man allegedly thought he was shooting a person involved in the unsolved murder of his girlfriend.
“I could feel the heat from the bullets coming past my leg,” Tasha Love, fiancee of victim Ernestine Stallings, told local ABC affiliate WEWS about the 2023 shooting carried out by Jontae Watkins. Love was standing next to Stallings and helping her load the birthday balloons into their car.
“All he seen was the back of her head — and the back of her, she had braids that go down and she had a baseball cap and she had glasses on and that”s all he seen,” Love recounted. “It could have been anybody.”
Watkins, 26, pleaded no contest in October to aggravated murder for the July 3, 2023, shooting. Prosecutors said in court that he pulled into the Dollar Tree in Akron, where Stallings was purchasing balloons and waited for her to come outside before opening fire, WEWS reports.
Watkins allegedly confessed to the slaying and admitted it was a case of mistaken identity. He and his girlfriend, Atavia Robinson, were both shot outside a movie theater in June 2022 and he thought Stallings was a person involved in the killing, which remains unsolved.
“He’s still not taking any accountability,” Love said after Watkins entered his no-contest plea in October. “He did it in cold blood. He’s a cold-blooded killer.”
Watkins was accused of shooting Stallings six times in the back and torso. A 911 audio recording obtained by WEWS features a description of what shoppers allegedly saw that day outside the Dollar Tree, with a caller saying, “He literally came up behind her and shot her like for no reason.”
Online court records show that Watkins was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole coming after he serves 33 years.
“This reckless act of misplaced vengeance took the life of an innocent woman,” said Summit County Prosecutor Elliot Kolkovich in a statement. “Violence in response to pain only creates more loss for our community. Our thoughts are with Ernestine Stallings’ loved ones as they grieve this senseless tragedy.”
