CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA  – (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Tadashi Demetrius Keyes was sentenced to life in prison for the Jan. 28, 2023, murder of Eldridge Smith on Monday.

Smith was a member of the B.U.C.K. Squad, a local non-gun-violence group. Prosecutors showed jurors more than a dozen calls and texts between Keyes and Smith that showed Smith was trying to recruit Keyes. In a text to a B.U.C.K. Squad executive 32 minutes before the shooting, Smith texted, “I got a guy who would work. He got his head on right.”

Instead, Keyes fired 14 shots with deliberation of just a few hours during his Sep. 2023, trial.

Keyes was sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder, along with three years for the use of a firearm during the commission of a murder.

The case was prosecuted by Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony who stated during the sentencing hearing, “this is a community and a Commonwealth Attorney’s Office that believes in second chances, and sometimes even third and fourth chances.  After being given a life sentence for narcotics and violent firearms offenses in federal court, Mr. Keyes was granted early release and given a second chance. But he chose to take that second chance, and his freedom, and execute Eldridge Smith in cold blood. Because of that, there can and must be only one response, a sentence of life in prison.”