A Norfolk judge on Friday sentenced 30-year-old Tevin Darrell Locker to one year and six months in prison for voluntary manslaughter after Locker stabbed and killed his younger brother, 28-year-old Terrell Davon Locker, last year.
Early on the morning of June 5, 2022, Norfolk Police and emergency personnel were called to the 100 block of Hough Avenue for a single stabbing victim. They found the victim, Terrell Locker, lying on the sidewalk suffering from a single, deep stab wound to his neck, and he was pronounced dead after he was transported to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
An autopsy determined that Terrell Locker died from that single stab wound and that his blood-alcohol concentration was more than .19 when he died.
The police had no leads on the circumstances of Terrell Locker’s death or on who had stabbed him.
Two nights later, Tevin Locker walked into the Norfolk Police Operations Center and turned himself in with the help of a number of his family members, including his father and grandmother, telling an officer that he had been involved in an “accidental stabbing.”
Investigators determined that the incident to which Tevin Locker was referring was the stabbing death of his brother. Tevin Locker had a small cut on one of his hands but no other injuries.
Terrell Locker was significantly taller and heavier than Tevin Locker. When taken before a Norfolk magistrate to be charged, Tevin Locker said, “All I have to say is I was attacked.”
The exact circumstances of why Tevin Locker stabbed Terrell Locker remain unknown.
Tevin Locker was originally charged with second-degree murder, but he pleaded guilty on April 26, to voluntary manslaughter, and Judge David W. Lannetti accepted his plea.
The reason for the plea was the history between the brothers, the questions surrounding what happened that night, Tevin Locker turning himself in, as well as the Lockers’ parents’ requesting — as parents of both the victim and the defendant — that the Commonwealth take the mitigating facts into account in fashioning the plea offer.
Tevin Locker’s plea agreement called for a maximum active sentence of two years and three months.
A family member testified today at sentencing that Terrell was a loving brother when sober but that, when he was intoxicated, Terrell would treat Tevin “as a punching bag.”
“The story of a brother killing a brother is as old as Cain and Abel and just as tragic,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Tevin and Terrell’s parents have lost Terrell, and for them, it was important that we hold Tevin accountable but that we not cause them to lose Tevin, too. This is a very difficult case, where we must honor the memory of Terrell while also honoring the wishes of his parents that we exercise just mercy toward their surviving son. We have done our best to do so.”
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Chris Graham
