Published: 04:20 BST, 22 August 2026 | Updated: 04:20 BST, 22 August 2026
The families of two murder victims have erupted in fury after the office of a progressive Minneapolis prosecutor struck a deal allowing the man who admitted killing both of their loved ones to serve his sentences at the same time.
Marquez Hill-Turnipseed, 24, confessed to pulling the trigger in two separate killings committed three years apart – the 2022 drive-by shooting of Eloe Lomax and the 2025 killing of innocent bystander Stageina Whiting.
But instead of serving consecutive sentences for taking two lives, Hill-Turnipseed was handed concurrent sentences totaling 40 years under a plea agreement negotiated by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty's office.
Because of Minnesota's sentencing rules, Hill-Turnipseed is expected to spend roughly two-thirds of the sentence behind bars, meaning he could be released in less than 27 years, when he is around 50.
The deal has infuriated both victims' families, who questioned how two separate murders, committed years apart and leaving two families devastated, could effectively be folded into a single prison term.
'They were two different people. They should have made trial on two different cases, not put together,' Stageina's mother, Tasha Blanks, told KARE 11.
Marquez Hill-Turnipseed, 24, admitted being the gunman in the separate killings of Eloe Lomax in 2022 and Stageina Whiting in 2025 and has now been offered a lighter sentence
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a former public defender and in office since 2023, has faced repeated criticism over her progressive approach to prosecutions and sentencing
'He murdered my son first, and it should have been time for Eloe's murder, then the young lady's,' she said.
'And it shouldn't have been joined together. He ruined two families.'
Stageina's aunt, TT Toni, said the agreement failed to recognize that two entirely different lives had been taken and two families left to deal with their own devastating consequences.
'How can you combine two lives together?' she asked.
'This child had a whole life over here. And this child had a whole life over here. So this family is grieving differently.
'They lost so much over there with their son. We lost, this baby will have to grow up without her mother.'