New Orleans, Louisiana: Kelvin Atkins Gets Life in Prison Without Parole for Killing Johnshane Powell

Kelvin Atkins, 39, will spend the rest of his life in prison for the 2023 killing of Johnshane Powell, his former girlfriend, after a judge in New Orleans sentenced him on Friday to life without parole.

Judge Calvin Johnson of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court handed down the sentence on Friday, November 6. "Here we are again looking failure in the face, looking you in the face," Johnson told Atkins at the sentencing, the New York Post reported.

A jury convicted Atkins of second degree murder in September, at the end of a weeklong retrial. Under Louisiana law, second degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence, and the term imposed on Friday carries no eligibility for parole.

A killing Powell saw coming

Powell, 33, a mother of two daughters, was shot on July 3, 2023, in the 2400 block of New Orleans Street. Authorities said Atkins fired 19 shots at her from a Glock pistol fitted with a drum magazine.

Two days before the killing, Atkins had been arrested on domestic abuse charges. Powell told police at the time that he had slapped her, pulled her hair and bitten her, and had stolen a gun from her purse, according to prosecutors. Atkins was on parole for a separate felony at the time. He posted bail and walked back onto the street, to Powell's alarm, authorities said.

"What happens if y'all let him go and I end up dead tomorrow," she asked officers in the days before her death, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Atkins was afraid Powell would testify against him in the domestic abuse case, which would have carried a heavier sentence given his prior conviction. As Powell lay dying after the shooting, she identified her killer as "K" on body camera footage, a nickname drawn from Atkins' first name, prosecutors said.

Two trials and a court record

Court records show Atkins was indicted on January 26, 2024, on charges that included domestic abuse battery, second degree murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, theft counts, obstruction of justice and violation of a protective order.

His first trial ended in a deadlock on the murder charge, with the jury convicting him of two other charges but not of Powell's death. The retrial ran for a week in September. Criminal District Judge Kimya Holmes, Powell's aunt, testified during it. She told the court she had to tell Powell's two daughters that their mother was dead, and that nothing "can prepare you for that." "She loved hard, and if she cared about you, she protected you with all that she had," Holmes said of her niece.

On September 18, the jury found Atkins guilty of second degree murder and of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office. Friday's sentencing closed the case in the trial court, three years and four months after the shooting.