One by one, the family of Samuel "Miah" Rush calmly confronted his killer in a Rock Island courtroom, before the judge imposed a fifty-year prison sentence for Antwoine Eubanks.
"I don't wish this on anybody, but if anybody deserves life behind bars, it's you," said Letha Knox. The victim's step-mother was one of four family members to read victim's impact statements from the witness stand prior to the sentencing.
"I suggest that you find God. It's never too late," she said.
Eubanks, 25, said nothing. At one time, he yawned, then smirked. He offered no explanation, no apology for the March 30, 2010 shooting.
"What upset me is he showed no remorse," Knox said.
Judge Frank Fuhr called the killing "senseless."
"The defendant didn't even know Mr. Rush," said the judge.
For Rush's family, it was a two year wait, but "justice has been served," according to the victim's sister, Francesca Wilcox.
"He should never walk these streets to do what he did to us to anybody else. And Miah will never get up out of his grave in fifty years," Wilcox said.
Prosecutors say Eubanks has been in and out of trouble since he was 12 years old. The motive for the shooting is still unclear.