A Dolton man was sentenced to 130 years Thursday for his role in a double slaying last year at the Renaissance Towers in Hammond.
Marvin “Geno” Clark, 33, was convicted of four counts of murder and three counts of burglary, plus four gun enhancements. Two of the murder counts were while committing a burglary.
He was sentenced on three charges — 60 years each for two murders with 10 years total for two gun enhancements. He also got 35 years for Level 1 burglary charge, which was concurrent, or to be served at the same time as the murder charges.
His lawyer indicated he would appeal.
Hammond Police were called around 3:30 a.m. May 18 to the apartments on the 500 block of Michigan Street. The victims — Gary Shanklin, 23, of East Chicago, and Montelle “Monty” Lang, 29, of Chicago — were found shot to death at the bottom of a stairwell.
Shanklin was the “light of our family,” his aunt LaDenna Varner said. “You took that away from us.”
She noted he is survived by a beloved daughter.
Vena Walker, Lang’s mother, said his two children, 13 and 7, were left “traumatized.”
“You never know pain (until you see) your dead child’s head lying in a casket,” she told Clark.
Lang just started a job at the Chicago Transit Authority and was looking to build a “stable future” for his children, his father Terry Lang said in a letter read by a prosecutor.
“Some days, the grief is so heavy, I can barely breathe,” Terry wrote. “My son’s life had meaning. He mattered.”
Deputy Prosecutor Milana Petersen said the slayings were “gruesome” and especially troublesome since four children were found mere feet away in an apartment bedroom. Clark wore a ski mask and parked a getaway vehicle close by, she argued.
Clark had repeated issues in jail, including an alleged fight two days before.
Defense lawyer John Cantrell said regardless of what he said, Clark would get life.
However, the Lake County Jail was dealing with a “bunch of chaos” — i.e multiple issues affecting inmates, including power outages, overflowing water, locks that didn’t work, and inmates caught with shanks.
It was “just survival” for jail administrators.
In the burglary, his client didn’t break through the window of the apartments, he argued.
Clark declined to speak in court.
Judge Samuel Cappas said he wouldn’t really consider what was going on at the jail for the sentence.
“It sounds like survival over there,” he said.
Authorities alleged co-defendant Anthony Smothers showed up at his ex-girlfriend Jailen Perry’s apartment with Clark and co-defendant Daniel “Danny” Harmon from an Illinois bar.
Police learned Smothers was on the phone with the woman when Lang, her new boyfriend, had choked her a week earlier in front of at least one of their kids.
Shanklin was friends with Lang — they stopped over after a party.
When Perry didn’t let the trio in, the men took off a screen and climbed through a living room window. Lang and Shanklin started arguing with them.
He and Perry got into a physical confrontation. Smothers handed the gun to Harmon so he could freely attack Perry. She led Smothers outside the apartment trying to “defuse” the confrontation just before the shooting.
She told the victims to go out her front door while she talked with Smothers. He followed her outside her unit as they argued by the building’s east side. The woman heard shots. The two men with him, then Smothers fled.
“He’s dead,” Harmon said while leaving.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
