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Background: Christie Parisien and Jaslyn Smith (Broward Sheriff’s Office). Inset: Andre Clements (Broward Sheriff’s Office).
A young man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing his romantic rival with a sword after recruiting the help of two friends. Andre Clements, 20, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for murder, tampering with evidence, and conspiracy to commit murder, according to NBC Miami.
He apologized in court, saying he would give his life to bring back Dwight “DJ” Grant. A friend of Grant’s family, however, reportedly told the outlet that those were just words and did not do anything to ease their suffering.
Dwight’s mother, Madelyn Emile, reportedly told the court, “I will never walk my son down the aisle. He’ll never come say anything to me ’cause he’s not here. He’s resting in power. All the good things my son did, the memories will always be with me.”
Clements, 17 at the time of the crime, dragged down two girls with him. Christie Parisien and Jaslyn Smith were respectively 17 and 16 when they helped him in the fatal attack. Parisien helped lure Grant into a stairwell, where Clements and Smith confronted him. Clements stabbed him to death.
Both, however, told authorities on interrogation footage that they didn’t expect a killing.
“I didn’t think he meant, like, actual murder,” Parisien told cops on Oct. 23, 2021.
“Andre told me that somebody had pissed him off, or somebody that was messing with somebody else’s girl or something — it had to do with some type of chick — and that he was upset and that he needed some backup for a fight,” separately told police with her mother at her side on Oct. 19, 2021. “He told me it was just a fight.”
Both have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and conspiracy to commit murder and were sentenced to 25 years in prison.