(Milford, CT) - Margaret E. Kelley, Ansonia/Milford Judicial District State’s Attorney, today announced that the Honorable Eliot D. Prescott on September 23, 2024 sentenced Jacob “Jewla” Freeman, age 28, of Ansonia, to 48 years in prison and five years of special parole for the 2017 murder of Jajuan Benavides in Derby in August 2017.
On June 25, 2024, a Superior Court jury found Freeman guilty of Murder, in violation of Connecticut General Statutes § 53-54a. The conviction stems from the shooting death of Mr. Benavides, age 21, on Anson Street in Derby on August 11, 2017. Evidence at trial showed that on that date at about 1:48 a.m., an individual in a mask and dressed in all black chased the victim down Anson Street, shooting him three times. Surveillance footage as well as call detail records determined that on August 10, 2017, around 11:30 p.m., Freeman was in the area of Anson and 6th Streets and interacted with the victim. Freeman is subsequently seen leaving the area around 11:55 p.m. About a year and a half after the fatal shooting, a jailhouse witness provided numerous details regarding the murder, including that Freeman told him that he returned to the Anson Street area masked up and pulled his gun out on the victim and shot at him. The witness told investigators that Freeman told him he shot the victim, "stood over him and let him have it,” and watched as he fell to the ground. Freeman told the witness that the victim was saying "chill Jewla chill." The witness said Freeman was wearing black pants, a black hoodie and a mask at the time of the crime. Though the witness refused to testify at trial, his prior testimony at an earlier probable cause hearing about the murder of Benavides was admitted at this trial.
In total, 12 witnesses testified for the State, including three witnesses to the crime, indicating what they saw that night as well as a resident of the area who testified what she heard the night of the murder. In addition, the State was successful in admitting into evidence a rap video made and posted on social media by Freeman just one month after the homicide, where Freeman is heard in his lyrics, making specific admissions about how the shooting occurred. The Superior Court jury reached its verdict after less than a day of deliberations.
At the September 23, 2024 sentencing hearing, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Marc Durso asked the judge for a prison sentence that would send a message to others that gun violence will be punished severely, and noted that a sentencing report prepared by probation officials described Freeman as a high risk to offend again.
"Essentially this was an assassination," Durso said, describing how Freeman "hunted down" Benavides after lying in wait for him, and fired multiple shots as Benavides tried to run away. "No amount of time is enough to bring Jajuan back, but this is a life sentence his family has to live with, and I think the penalty should reflect the equivalent for Mr. Freeman," Durso said.
Judge Prescott called the victim’s murder a “planned” attack. “This didn't happen in the blink of an eye. This was planned. You left the Anson Street area, you went somewhere else, you came back and you executed him,” the judge said. “That's calculated. That's cold."
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Durso and Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Tatiana Messina, with the assistance of Inspector Herbert Johnson, Inspector Butch Hyatt and Paralegal Chelsea Meehan.