Ruby Jones raised her right hand Friday as a jury returned a guilty verdict against the man who shot her son to death following a rap concert in Colorado Springs. It was a gesture like someone about to testify, which is what Jones did a short time later when 4th Judicial District Judge Jann DuBois imposed a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole on Terry Lamaire Gaines. Gaines, 24, was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing Michael Allen Davis, 27, on April 3, 2009, by shooting him nine times in a parking lot outside the Mr. Biggs Event Center after a concert by California rapper E-40. DuBois also tagged on another four years for Gaines’ conviction on vehicular eluding for leading police on a high speed chase on southbound Interstate 25 until Colorado State Patrol troopers flattened the tires of his vehicle just north of Pueblo. The judge also sentenced Gaines to two more years for possession of a gun by a previous offender and four more years for a 2007 marijuana possession conviction. But before DuBois imposed the sentence, Jones told the judge about what an ordeal it was to listen to some of the testimony during the two week trial. “It’s been excruciating,” Jones said. “My heart would ache. The chest pains were so bad.” She said the Gaines family also suffered a loss, but noted they can visit him in jail. “My son is in a cold grave and I have to go talk to a headstone,” she added. Jones also challenged Gaines’ claim that her son had once ripped him off by paying for marijuana with a counterfeit $100 bill. Even if it were true, she asked, “You took his life over a $100 bill? How could you do that?” It took the eigh-man, four-woman jury about six hours over two days to find Gaines guilty on all charges.

During the trial Gaines testified that he shot Davis in self-defense, thinking that he was reaching for a gun while sitting in his car. He also claimed that Davis made a threatening gun-like gesture with his hand during the concert. Gaines sat impassive between his two attorneys as the verdict was read. When his turn came to speak to the judge, he showed little remorse. “I just want to say that this is a loss for everybody,” he told the judge. “And even though they think justice is served, justice ain’t served ’cause they’re going to have to go the rest of their lives hurting, just like my family has got to go the rest of their life hurting,” he added. “But no matter what, you all can take my life away from the streets, but you all can’t take me off this Earth.” “You all can judge me and call me names and be hateful but at the end of the day the Lord is the only one that can judge me.” For more on this trial, visit “The Sidebar” blog at gazettedev.gazette.com