Facing murder trial for Lexington teen’s death, suspects say charges are racially driven

Seven years after a shooting on University Avenue left 18-year-old Caleb Hallett dead during a bungled robbery, two people accused of being responsible are finally set to stand trial this week.

Marquess L. “Hector” Smith, 26, and co-defendant Marique Q. Sturgis, 25, are charged with murder, assault and robbery in the death Hallett, who died at the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital after he was shot. He would’ve been 26 this year. His friend, Josh Baker, was shot in the right arm during that night.

Sturgis, who was 17 at the time of the murder, faces an additional charge of evidence tampering.

During the trial, prosecutors say they plan to present evidence to a jury that proves five people — two men and three minors — coordinated this attack that ended with Hallett’s death. But defense attorneys for Smith and Sturgis say the charges are racially motivated, and testimony from others involved in the incident shouldn’t be believed.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Kimberly Baird, who made the prosecutors’ opening statement, told jurors that shell casings and text messages would be part of the evidence showing five men planned this deadly attack and executed it, only leaving the scene with Baker’s cell phone, which they later threw out the window.

“A stupid decision led to a tragic result,” she concluded before requesting the jury find all of the boys had worked in concert during the fatal shooting.

Baird laid out the events leading up to the shooting on Jan. 9, 2016, saying Smith and Christopher “Mason” Allen, 25, made plans to rob a house on University Avenue because there was believed to be a significant amount of marijuana in the home. Baird said Sturgis later spoke to police, admitting he shot Baker in the passenger seat of a vehicle. He told officers he later threw the gun in the Kentucky River.

In interviews with police, Smith has continually denied his involvement in the shooting and has also denied that he knew anyone involved, according to Baird. She said text message evidence disproves these claims.

Defense: Charges were racially driven

Defense attorneys for both Sturgis and Smith say their clients’ charges are racially driven, and in the early part of the trial Wednesday, they tried to discredit the expected testimony of 24-year-old Ricky Auxier, another person involved in the incident. They also tried to discredit Allen’s testimony, arguing both of them were motivated by self-preservation. Both men were minors when the shooting happened.

Natalie Hurst Rollins, the attorney for Sturgis, said of the five involved, only the two “Black boys” were charged. Allen and Auxier, who are both white, received plea deals in exchange for testifying at this trial, according to court testimony. In April 2021, Allen pleaded guilty to a murder charge in a deal that saw other offenses dismissed. Auxier pleaded guilty to robbery charges the same month, according to court records.

The fifth suspect, 21-year-old Kenyon Hipps, who was also Black, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound just days after the shooting.

“(Mason and Ricky) have a stake in this and they have a reason to put distance between themselves and this case, by blaming the Black boys,” Rollins said.

Baird was quick to object to Rollins’ statements, which were shortly admonished by Fayette Circuit Judge Lucy VanMeter who said the statements were “misleading.”

Rollins admitted Sturgis did tell police he shot Baker, but said it was because he was a kid and told cops “what they wanted to hear.” She said evidence will paint a different picture, with no DNA to place Sturgis at the scene, no evidence connecting the gun to Sturgis and no witnesses to testify they saw Sturgis shoot Baker.

“This case is about blame, and it is a bunch of kids playing that blame game,” Rollins said. “The commonwealth wants you to do that, too.”

Smith’s attorney, Daniel Whitley, said “the difference in how (Sturgis and Smith) were treated was racial.”

Whitley told jurors that prosecutors’ evidence relies heavily on the testimony of a “repeated, documented liar.” So much so, Whitley said, Auxier and Allen were caught in phone conversations after interviews with police about what they should say, according to court testimony.

“Can you rely on a documented liar to find my client guilty?” Whitley asked the 16-person jury of eight men and eight women, which appeared to include 15 people who are white.

Investigators, family members of the victim, witnesses to the crime, and toxicology and ballistics experts are expected to testify during the two-week trial, according to court documents.

Sturgis and Smith originally stood trial in May 2022, but former Fayette Circuit Judge Jeffrey Taylor declared a mistrial when not enough jurors could be selected to seat the 14-member jury panel.

Smith has been incarcerated since his arrest in 2016. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Sturgis has been out on bond since September 2022, according to court documents. Sturgis faces a sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 20 years.