ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis man will likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison after being sentenced for multiple carjackings, one of which claimed the life of a beloved football coach at De Smet Jesuit High School.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said Jaz Granderson was shot while being carjacked in the early morning hours of Oct. 16, 2017, near the intersection of Minnesota Avenue and Hill Street. He later died at a local hospital. Granderson was 27.
Granderson played prep football at Kirkwood High School, where he graduated in 2008. He went on to play college football at Northern Iowa.
In the weeks after Granderson’s murder, authorities identified three people in connection with the shooting, as well as other carjackings. By November, federal prosecutors had charged Kurt Wallace, Jherrica Dixon, and Floyd Barber for the aforementioned crimes.
The trio participated in at least five armed carjackings between August and October 2017, according to prosecutors. On September 16 and October 15 of that year, the carjacking victims were shot.
Court documents allege Dixon lured victims to certain locations in the city, allowing Wallace, her boyfriend at the time, and others to rob those victims at gunpoint. Granderson was one of those victims.
Wallace, 31, admitted in court to shooting Granderson while stealing his Jeep Grand Cherokee. He also confessed to shooting drivers in two other carjackings. After his arrest, Wallace escaped jail in July 2019 with another inmate, James Flannel. The two committed another carjacking and led police on a lengthy pursuit before crashing the vehicle and being arrested.
Wallace pleaded guilty in September 2023 to four counts of carjacking, two counts of discharging a firearm in furtherance of carjacking, one count of discharging a firearm in furtherance of carjacking resulting in death, and one count of jail escape.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Wallace on Wednesday, February 14, to 60 years in federal prison.
Meanwhile, Flannel, 43, was sentenced in November 2021 to life in prison for killing cab driver Boris Iouioukine in June 2018 during a carjacking. Flannel will be sentenced on February 20 for escaping jail with Wallace and their joint carjacking.
Dixon, 30, pleaded guilty in May 2019 to five counts of carjacking, four counts of using a firearm in furtherance of those carjackings, and one count of using a firearm in furtherance of a carjacking resulting in death. She was sentenced in December 2023 to 19 years in prison.
Barber, 28, pleaded guilty in June 2019 to two counts of carjacking, one count of using a firearm in furtherance of a carjacking, and one count of using a firearm in furtherance of a carjacking resulting in death. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison in December 2023.
During his court appearance in making the guilty plea, Barber admitted to his involvement in a fatal drug robbery in October 2017. Three other co-defendants, Jerell Henderson, Larenta Jones, and Stephan Jones, were each sentenced in 2022 for that robbery and murder.
