Plea deals offered in Syracuse teen killing case after 2024 shooting

A plea deal could give Deron McGee Jr.’s family a faster path to finality, but it also shows how much of the Westmoreland Avenue case is still being worked out in court. In Onondaga County Court, prosecutors offered three defendants a chance to plead guilty and take 20 years in prison plus five years of probation in exchange for first-degree manslaughter pleas.

The offers were made before Judge Matthew Doran to Torrin Brown, Quinntone Moore and Uzziah Murray. All three were 16 at the time of the shooting, and all three were arraigned as adults after an Onondaga County Grand Jury indictment that included murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of stolen property. If any defendant accepts, the court would still have to review the plea and sentence would follow the terms negotiated in open court.

The case centers on Deron McGee Jr., who was 15 when he was shot around 11 p.m. on Aug. 12, 2024, in the 200 block of Westmoreland Avenue near Parkside Commons Apartments in Syracuse. Police and prosecutors have said McGee was an unintended target in an attempted drive-by shooting. Court records and reporting also say the group was riding in a stolen Hyundai Sonata that had been taken from the Destiny USA parking lot.

That detail has made the case especially painful in Syracuse. McGee was later identified as a Corcoran High School student, and his obituary said he was born on Nov. 12, 2008, and died on Aug. 15, 2024. The obituary named his mother as Natasha Huertas and his father as Dereon McGee.

For prosecutors, plea deals in a homicide case like this usually trade the uncertainty of trial for certainty of punishment. A negotiated manslaughter plea can lock in a long sentence, avoid the time and risk of a jury trial, and spare the victim’s family from months more of testimony and delays. It can also reflect the realities of a teen case, where defendants were minors at the time of the shooting but are being handled in adult court because of the seriousness of the charges.

The case remains a sharp example of how Onondaga County is handling youth gun violence: quickly moving serious charges into criminal court, but still relying on plea negotiations to resolve some of the region’s most damaging shootings. If the defendants reject the offer, the case would keep moving toward trial, with the outcome far less certain for everyone involved.