Judge Kelvin D. Filer sentenced Jahon Terez Smith to life without parole for the 2001 Compton killings of Stephen Murphy and Kali.

Life without parole is the term Judge Filer imposed after a guilty verdict. Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson and defense attorney Maryam Mazhin do not agree on who fired the shots that killed Murphy and Kali. The jury convicted Smith of both murders, found a multiple-murder special circumstance true, and found that he personally discharged a firearm during the attempted murders.

MyNewsLA reported that on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, Judge Kelvin D. Filer sentenced Jahon Terez Smith, now 50, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury convicted him Aug. 14 of two counts of first-degree murder for the Aug. 8, 2001 killings of Stephen Murphy and his daughter Kali, who was 2, and of three counts of attempted murder. The jury found true the special circumstance of multiple murders. It also found that Smith personally discharged a firearm during the attempted murders. That firearm finding is the jury's finding on the attempted-murder counts.

This was a second jury. MyNewsLA reported the first jury hung 11-1 in favor of guilt in October 2025. A hung jury did not return a verdict. The August conviction is the verdict Tuesday's sentence rests on.

ABC7 Los Angeles, FOX 11 Los Angeles, NBC Los Angeles, and Law&Crime reported the arrest history. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department arrested Smith on Oct. 30, 2023. DNA testing tied him to the gun used in the shootings after the case had sat dormant for decades. The arrest and the DNA comparison are how the case was reopened. They are not the sentence.

Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson's account, as MyNewsLA reported it, is that Smith drove with an unidentified accomplice into rival gang territory after a gang member was killed. Thompson said the accomplice killed Murphy and Kali, whom he described as innocent bystanders, as Murphy ran with Kali in his arms, and that Smith shot other people in related shootings. Defense attorney Maryam Mazhin said Smith was not the actual killer of Murphy and Kali, that the gunman has not been caught, and she criticized the investigation. Those are the two accounts of who fired the fatal shots. The jury convicted Smith of both murders.

Phyllis Murphy, Stephen's mother, and Shawnna King, Kali's mother, gave victim-impact statements. MyNewsLA reported that the judge called the statements powerful. The statements are what the families told the court at sentencing. They are not a new verdict. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.