Portsmouth jury convicts woman in fatal shooting outside Valvoline workplace

Ahleesha Brucia Monique Sykes turned Benjamin Randall Nesbitt’s Valvoline shift into a deadly ambush, and a Portsmouth jury said the evidence was enough to convict her after a two-day trial. Jurors found Sykes guilty on April 8 in the fatal shooting of the 23-year-old at his workplace in the 1000 block of Frederick Boulevard.

The case stood out because it was both intimate and public at once. Trial evidence showed Sykes and Nesbitt had been in a relationship, and that she went to the Valvoline on February 9, 2024, waiting for him to come outside. Prosecutors framed the killing as domestic-related, but the shooting happened in front of a business tied to the ordinary rhythm of work, not in a private setting.

Court documents reported that Sykes, who was 19 at the time, came to the shop with a plan to kill Nesbitt and then herself. A Portsmouth police officer reportedly heard gunshots around 2:30 p.m. and chased her down before she was arrested. That sequence, laid out in the trial coverage, gave jurors a clear path from relationship conflict to the fatal shooting and helped explain why they returned a guilty verdict so quickly.

Nesbitt’s death sparked an outpouring in Portsmouth. Family members and friends gathered in the Valvoline parking lot to remember him, and loved ones described him as a father and a U.S. Army veteran. His family publicly called the killing domestic violence and said it was unacceptable, putting the case in blunt terms that matched the facts jurors heard in court.

The conviction also landed against a broader backdrop of gun violence in the city. By Feb. 10, 2024, Portsmouth had recorded 19 shootings that year, including six deaths. In Nesbitt’s case, the violence did not happen in a back alley or a late-night parking lot. It happened where he worked, after a former partner showed up waiting for him, and jurors concluded that was enough to prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.