Keantae Vaughn was 14 when he was charged in the murder of a Deerfield Beach High student and football player in 2022.
Now just shy of turning 18, Vaughn was sentenced to 25 years in state prison on Monday morning after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
Two rows in Broward Circuit Judge George Odom’s courtroom were filled with observers. In one, family members of slain victim Rickey Ferguson Jr. sat, sobbed and muttered under their breath, barely containing their anger that the law could not punish Vaughn further.
Standing in front of the judge, they described themselves as broken, robbed of a future with the promising 16-year-old athlete with dreams of attending the University of Alabama. Back at their seats, they called Vaughn a coward. Vaughn showed no sign that he could hear them.
Seated behind Ferguson’s family was Vaughn’s. They said nothing to the Fergusons, nothing to the judge. Only one called out softly to Vaughn when the proceeding was done. “We love you,” she said.
Ferguson, said prosecutor Kristine Bradley, was shot in the head at Westside Park in Deerfield Beach on Dec. 28, 2022, after what first seemed like an almost whimsical dispute over a hat. As Bradley recounted the incident, Vaughn’s mother, father and other family members took deep breaths and leaned into each other’s shoulders for consolation.
Vaughn’s trial was scheduled to begin Jan. 6. Prospective jurors were outside the courtroom that day, preparing to enter to begin the first phase of jury selection, when Vaughn decided to enter the agreement, his defense attorney Bruce Raticoff told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“They were outside the courtroom, and sometimes that has the effect of jarring somebody into a sense of reality. It’s really happening, and they’re really out there … He didn’t want to take the gamble of possibly spending the rest of his life in prison,” Raticoff said.
Vaughn was facing a possible life sentence and a minimum sentence of 40 years in prison for first-degree murder, his attorney said.
A trial would have been a gamble for the state and family as well. As a 14-year old shooter, Vaughn was charged as an adult but could have been sentenced as a juvenile. Had that happened, Bradley said, he could have been out in as little as six years.
The plea agreement ensures a 25-year sentence and $7,500 restitution.
Ferguson was a sophomore and “star athlete” at Deerfield Beach High, the school said in a post about his death on their website at the time. His aunt wrote in a GoFundMe online fundraiser that his “life revolved around football and going to a D1 college.”
Ferguson had been playing football at Westside Park the afternoon of Dec. 28, 2022. He and a friend were among a group who had gathered at the field, as well as Vaughn, according to a probable cause affidavit. The two knew each other.
Vaughn was among several children who had jumped a fence and approached a metal bench where Ferguson and a friend were sitting next to the field, according to the warrant. At least one person in the group of kids who came toward Ferguson was playing with a Glock handgun while near the benches, Ferguson’s friend who witnessed the shooting told detectives.
The group of kids at some point went behind Ferguson and took a hat he was wearing and tossed it around until Ferguson got up and chased them to get it back, according to the witness. Multiple people told Vaughn, who then had the gun, to sit down and stop playing with it.
Vaughn, who the witness knew as “Tae,” then went behind Ferguson again, and the witness told detectives he wasn’t sure what happened but that something was “going on,” the warrant said. He saw Ferguson in front of the benches with Vaughn holding a gun to his head and heard one shot.
A detective asked the witness whether he believed the shooting was an accident, according to the warrant. Ferguson’s friend said he initially thought so but “was being told that Keantae Vaughn was given the gun to shoot the victim.” He later told the detective that he heard Vaughn disliked Ferguson.
Ferguson was taken to the intensive care unit at Broward Health North. His mother told detectives she could think of no reason why her son would have been shot, the affidavit said.
His mother announced in a Facebook post on Jan. 3, 2023, that her son died. She wrote that her son “has passed on and gained his wings” with a photo of him in a football uniform, wearing the number 12.