Fort Myers Man Sentenced to 45 Years for Murder-for-Hire Scheme

Fort Myers Man Sentenced to 45 Years for Murder-for-Hire Scheme

Fort Myers, FL – In a brutal case of murder-for-hire, Marvin Harris, Jr., aka ‘Mesh’ (25, Fort Myers), was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire.

According to court documents, Harris, Jr. hired two individuals, Latrel Jackson (26, Chicago, IL), aka ‘Kobe,’ and unindicted co-conspirator D.S. (deceased), to travel from the Chicago-area to Fort Myers to commit murder in exchange for $10,000 in November 2019.

Harris, Jr.’s motive was to retaliate against individuals he believed had robbed a Fort Myers residence from which he and others associated with him sold drugs. The individuals Harris, Jr. suspected of committing the robbery belonged to a Fort Myers gang known to law enforcement as ‘Bucktown.’

With the agreement to retaliate against Bucktown in place, Jackson and D.S. traveled to Fort Myers from Chicago aboard a commercial airline on October 28, 2019. Upon their arrival, Harris, Jr. picked Jackson and D.S. up from the Southwest Florida International Airport and provided them with partial payment for the planned murder, as well as firearms to accomplish their task.

Initially, Jackson and D.S. stayed at Harris, Jr.’s ‘trap house’ (a residence used primarily to distribute drugs from) in Fort Myers but later moved to a local motel on Palm Beach Boulevard. During that time, Jackson, D.S., and others attempted to find members of Bucktown to murder in the retaliatory scheme.

On November 2, 2019, Harris, Jr. obtained a vehicle for Jackson and D.S. to use during the commission of a murder. Jackson and D.S. proceeded to a known Bucktown hangout in Fort Myers and observed the victim, K.U., standing in front of the residence near the curb of the street. Jackson and D.S. quickly circled the block and, at close range, opened fire on K.U., killing him in front of the residence via a gunshot wound of the head.

After the shooting, Harris, Jr. paid Jackson and D.S. the remaining sum of money owed for completing the murder-for-hire scheme. Jackson and D.S. were also left in possession of the firearms used to commit the murder. Jackson and D.S. then returned to the Chicago area via commercial bus on November 3, 2019.

During a search of Jackson’s Chicago-area home on November 21, 2019, law enforcement recovered two firearms from an attic space in Jackson’s room. Expert testing and examination of the firearms by ATF confirmed that both matched shell casings recovered from the murder scene and the murder vehicle, and that one of the firearms had fired the bullet which had been recovered from K.U.’s head during his autopsy.