Getaway driver sentenced for his role in drive-by shooting that killed Puyallup man
A 23-year-old man who helped a gunman as a getaway driver in the killing of a Puyallup man shot to death outside his home has been sentenced to 17 months in prison.
Patrick Shepherd pleaded guilty Feb. 2 in Pierce County Superior Court to first-degree rendering criminal assistance in the March 15, 2021, homicide of Antonio Erb, 20. Shepherd drove Larry Mayhand in a Dodge Durango from a parking lot where Mayhand spotted Erb to the victim’s home, according to court records, where Mayhand leaned out of the passenger window and fired 11 gunshots, striking the man once.
Erb collapsed on the front porch of his residence and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Before handing down the sentence Friday, Judge Garold Johnson told Shepherd he could send him to prison for the rest of his life, but it would never change the fact that a human being’s life had been taken. The real question, Johnson said, was if Shepherd would do this again.
“No, definitely not,” Shepherd said. “I really didn’t know that it was going to happen, otherwise I wouldn’t have. I just, I made the wrong choice of having somebody in my car that had a weapon and I shouldn’t have did that. And I won’t ever do it again.”
Johnson said there was some credibility to Shepherd’s statement because after the shooting he didn’t hide but instead identified the gunman to law enforcement.
Deputy prosecuting attorney Thomas Howe told Johnson he wanted to stress that it was because Shepherd was willing to make a proffer to testify against the man who killed Erb that Mayhand was in prison. According to court records, Mayhand pleaded guilty last year to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced March 3, 2023 to 11 years, 2 months in prison.
Shepherd had been charged with first- and second-degree murder in Erb’s death.
It’s unclear what motivated Mayhand to kill Erb. Outside the courtroom, Howe told The News Tribune that according to a probable cause document in one of the cases, Erb was involved in the drug trade. Howe said it wasn’t clear if that was ongoing when he was killed or something that happened in the past.
Erb’s family strongly disagreed with the plea agreement Howe reached with Shepherd, the deputy prosecuting attorney told Johnson. Erb’s relatives did not attend the sentencing hearing, but Howe said if they had, they would say that not prosecuting Shepherd to the fullest extent of the law was the wrong decision.
Howe had a strong case against Shepherd, the prosecuting attorney said, partly because of a confession and partly because the defendant’s car was used in the shooting, but convicting Mayhand was more critical.
“I took it as a truth that it was more important to exact some kind of penalty, some measure of justice against the person who actually pulled the trigger than the person who was driving the car,” Howe said.
Without Shepherd’s agreement to testify against Mayhand in return for reduced charges, the gunman might have gone free. Howe said Mayhand’s guilty plea was negotiated based on Shepherd’s proffer and defense interview.
“I don’t think I was going to win that case at trial,” Howe told the judge.
Shepherd was also sentenced Friday to a year-and-a-day in prison for a vehicular assault that occurred while the fatal shooting case was pending. He pleaded guilty to the offense Feb. 2.
The March 30, 2023, incident on South Tacoma Way between South 71st and 72nd streets involved four vehicles and left Shepherd critically injured. Others were hurt, too. Shepherd was out of custody on electronic home monitoring. Defense attorney Dino Sepe said in court that Shepherd fell asleep with his foot on the gas, and he struck another vehicle at 90 mph.
Tacoma police said the impact of the collision sent the other vehicle into oncoming traffic where it flipped and hit two cars. Shepherd’s Dodge Dakota pickup then crashed into a utility pole.
Howe said he wanted the court to know that he was responsible for asking for Shepherd’s release from Pierce County Jail. It became known to “probably everybody” in jail that Shepherd was willing to testify against another defendant, Howe said, and Shepherd told him that he was being threatened.
“I still think I made the right decision,” Howe said. “In the business that we’re in sometimes we make decisions that we find painful, and sometimes we make decisions that have less than perfect results.”
