Friday, June 26, 2026

Man sentenced to 63 years for $3 drug debt killing

HAMPTON — A man lost his life last year for what prosecutors in here said was a $3 drug debt. The man convicted of first-degree murder in the death has been sentenced to 63 years in prison.

A circuit court judge on Friday imposed the jury’s recommended punishment for 21-year-old J’Quan Malik Vinston in the slaying of 32-year-old Joshua David Williams.

Prosecutor Christopher Young said Vinston and 18-year-old Isaiah L. Smith refused to give Williams more time to come up with the $3 he owed on a $20 rock of crack cocaine.

Police haven’t established who pulled the trigger. Smith is set to go on trial in April.

Vinston’s lawyer Nicholas Hobbs says the lower end of sentencing guidelines, 21 years, would have been “a just sentence.”

John Mangalonzo
John Mangalonzohttps://wydaily.com
John Mangalonzo ([email protected]) is the managing editor of Local Voice Media’s Virginia papers – WYDaily (Williamsburg), Southside Daily (Virginia Beach) and HNNDaily (Hampton-Newport News). Before coming to Local Voice, John was the senior content editor of The Bellingham Herald, a McClatchy newspaper in Washington state. Previously, he served as city editor/content strategist for USA Today Network newsrooms in St. George and Cedar City, Utah. John started his professional journalism career shortly after graduating from Lyceum of The Philippines University in 1990. As a rookie reporter for a national newspaper in Manila that year, John was assigned to cover four of the most dangerous cities in Metro Manila. Later that year, John was transferred to cover the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines. He spent the latter part of 1990 to early 1992 embedded with troopers in the southern Philippines as they fought with communist rebels and Muslim extremists. His U.S. journalism career includes reporting and editing stints for newspapers and other media outlets in New York City, California, Texas, Iowa, Utah, Colorado and Washington state.

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