In an emotional hearing lasting over four hours, two Camden men were sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge in Little Rock for the Nov. 12, 2018, murder of a Pine Bluff pawnshop owner during an aborted robbery attempt.
Daryl Strickland Jr. and Rodney Tyrone Henry, both 25, pleaded guilty last year in federal court to discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence that resulted in murder in a robbery attempt at the Wise Buck Pawn Shop in Pine Bluff. It resulted in the death of owner Brandon McHan, 34, and left McHan's friend and employee, Jason Booth, seriously wounded with gunshot wounds to his face, torso and hand.
Both men admitted robbing a nearby convenience store of $800 about an hour after the shootings. The two men were arrested Dec. 4, 2018, in Camden by police following up on a tip. They were initially charged in Jefferson County Circuit Court with capital murder and aggravated robbery. Those charges were dismissed after Strickland and Henry were federally indicted in October 2019.
Both men admitted that at 5:22 p.m. on the day of crime, Strickland and Henry knocked on the front door of Wise Buck Pawn Shop and asked if the store was still open. After being told no, the two then appeared to leave the area as McHan and Booth continued closing the store, court records said.
Soon after, when McHan and Booth had exited out the front door to start their cars and then returned to the store, Strickland and Henry entered the threshold of the pawn shop. Strickland then fired several gunshots, striking both McHan and Booth, who returned fire, at which point Strickland and Henry retreated. But, two minutes later, both returned to the front door and Strickland again began shooting into the pawn shop. When McHan and Booth tried to fire back, Strickland retreated and Henry fired several times into the pawn shop. Then Strickland returned to the doorway a third time and fired more shots inside before he and Henry fled the scene.
Asking U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. for life sentences for both men, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant argued that the facts of the crime indicated the two men intentionally killed McHan and tried to kill Booth. Video shown in court taken from outside the pawn shop that evening showed Strickland and Henry approach the door of the pawn shop, stand there for a moment and then leave, only to return a few minutes later as Strickland fired through the front door of the business, then retreat, followed by Henry as return fire came from inside the pawn shop. In the interim, the video showed McHan and Booth exit the store as the two men went to their cars.
Shortly after the retreat, the video showed Strickland approach the doorway once more and fire several shots inside, followed by Henry who also fired several times into the store. The two men could then be seen running out of the frame as a Pine Bluff police car, emergency lights activated, passed through the video frame. Video from inside the store following the first round of gunfire showed McHan lying near the counter and Booth running from the front door to shield McHan with his body as McHan raised up and fired a shotgun at Strickland, who was standing once again in the front door.
McHan's father, Ronnie McHan, who attended the hearing with a large group of family members, exclaimed at that point, "that's my boy," followed by "shoot them murderers," before he got up and walked out of the courtroom as a deputy U.S. marshal cautioned him to be silent.
Later, as he gave a victim impact statement, he apologized to Moody for the outburst.
"I've had very few nights where I've slept the whole night," he said. "The wheels of justice grind slow but they got here. They got us to where we need to be."
Talking about his son, Ronnie McHan said, "He was a good son and he didn't deserve ... what happened." Turning his attention to Strickland and Henry, he said, "to you murderers, I hope your misery gets worse and worse."
Miranda McHan, Brandon McHan's wife, talked about the life she had with her husband during their 6½-year marriage.
"I expected to live my whole life with Brandon, we loved each other so," she said, sadly. "We were truly soulmates. ... The impact of his death on my life is so profound ... I recall him leaving the house early that morning, looking at me and smiling and saying goodbye. Little did I know that would really be our last goodbye."
Jeff McHan, Brandon McHan's identical twin brother, described the special bond he shared with his brother as the two grew up together in the home they shared with their mother and two sisters. He described a hardscrabble upbringing in a family that didn't have much money, raised by a single mother who he said taught them to work hard and respect others.
"Some people referred to us as white trash, you know, that's our upbringing," he said. "We both knew about powdered milk, government cheese, etc., is what I'm getting at. ... We didn't have money is what I'm getting at but we were raised with a lot of love, in church, we had a lot to develop our characters."
He said his brother started a pawn shop because that was what he had done since he was 18 and when the shop he was working for closed, he decided to go into business for himself.
Bryant said she understood the gravity of asking for life sentences for Strickland and Henry.
"We appreciate the fact that we're asking you to send two 20-year-olds to prison for the rest of their lives," Bryant said. "That's not lost on us. But their conduct deserves it.
"This killing wasn't a mistake or a youthful indiscretion," she continued. "It was a calculated choice by two adults who decided what they wanted was more important than the lives of Mr. McHan and Mr. Booth. ... They murdered a man at 5:30 in the afternoon on a busy street in Pine Bluff, Arkansas."
Moody denied appeals by both men's attorneys -- Charles Winnfield Wyatt and Lee Deken Short for Strickland, and Robert Golden and Leslie Borgognoni for Henry -- for sentences that would hold out the opportunity to one day leave prison.
"You had multiple opportunities to walk away and make a different choice," he said to Strickland. "Instead, in these moments you showed clear disregard for human life by actively choosing to enter the pawn shop, shooting immediately and giving the victims no chance to comply, then you went back to shoot some more with no other conceivable purpose than to kill."