D.C. resident Jasper Spires, 21, has pled guilty in the 2015 first-degree murder of 24-year-old Kevin Sutherland on a Metrorail train, police announced Thursday.
Spires’ guilty plea calls for an agreed-upon sentence in the range of 30 to 35 years. Spires’ next hearing is set for January 12, 2018, where a judge will determine whether to accept the plea and sentencing range.
Then-18-year-old Spires fatally stabbed Sutherland just past noon on July 4, 2015, on a downtown-bound Red Line train between Rhode Island Avenue and NOMA-Gallaudet metro stations. Metro surveillance camera captured Spires following Sutherland onto the Metro platform at Rhode Island Avenue station and entering the same Metro car as him.
After attempting to steal Sutherland’s phone, Spires stabbed him multiple times and fled at the next station as horrified passengers looked on. Sutherland was pronounced dead at the scene. Spires was arrested on July 6.
Sutherland was a recent graduate from American University and was working as a digital political strategist at the time of his death. Last year, Sutherland’s photography of the District was displayed in the NOMA-Gallaudet metro station.
