PANAMA CITY — Family members of a man left dead for days in the trunk of a car wished death upon the Panama City man who shot him several times and placed him there.
Darryl Mack, 22, was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for his role in the robbery plot that led to the shooting death of 24-year-old Tavish Greene. Mack accepted the plea offer instead of facing a trial — during which his initial attorney in the case had been ordered to testify against him — where he would have faced life in prison.
Mack accepted a reduced charge from second-degree murder to manslaughter with a firearm in the agreement. He also was found guilty of robbery and three counts of felon in possession of a firearm.
During his sentencing, Mack heard comments from several of Greene’s immediate family members expressing disappointment with the sentence.
“I wish death on you every day I wake up,” said Tanisha Greene, sister of Tavish Green. “I wish somehow ya’ll would croak over and die. … If you die today, I’ll come to your funeral laughing.”
Tangela Peterson, mother of Tavish Greene, brought his infant daughter to meet the man convicted of killing her father face to face.
“This girl here will never ever get to know her dad — who he was,” Peterson said. “You get to see her in the flesh. He will never see her.”
At one point bailiffs had to calm outbursts from the audience after Mack began to answer their requests for a reason he shot Greene and hid his body in the trunk of a car.
“The story they seen is not how it went down,” Mack said. “He did have a hit on his head, but he robbed me. It didn’t go down like that. There was a shootout.”
Mack was arrested with Tyricka Woullard, 20, in June. The two fled the state to Covington, Ga., as police discovered Greene’s body in the trunk of a 2004 Chevy Malibu behind an abandoned East Eighth Court home on July 24.
“My son was so decomposed I couldn’t show his face,” Peterson said during the sentencing. “You put him in the trunk of car behind an abandoned house in 100-degree weather. Why?”
Police said Greene’s death came at the end of a botched robbery, involving three conspiring parties.
One of the three accused, 22-year-old Dontavis Thomas, pleaded no contest to being an accessory to Greene’s murder. Police reports said the three suspects lured Greene to Woullard’s residence at 3710 W. 21st St., where they planned to rob him the morning of July 19. Thomas and Mack allegedly used phone calls and text messages to draw Greene into a trap through Woullard, his ex-girlfriend. The three hid inside, waiting to ambush Greene for money and illegal narcotics.
Woullard and Mack then fled to Georgia the day after, police reported. Thomas remained in Bay County and was arrested shortly after.
Thomas agreed to five years of probation, punishable by as much as 20 years in prison if he didn’t testify against the co-defendants, according to court documents.
In the months that followed Thomas’ plea deal, Mack’s attorney Timothy Hilley at the time reported that Mack made a veiled threat on Thomas’ life during a confidential conversation. Prosecutors demanded Hilley testify in trial against his own client, and Hilley was removed from the case.
The day Mack accepted the 20-year sentence, Bay County Judge James Fensom ruled Hilley’s testimony would be admissible in court and jurors would potentially hear a defendants’ own attorney speak against him.
Mack would have faced a life sentence at trial. According to the terms of his plea deal, he could be released in about 16 years.
Woullard still faces charges of principal to second-degree murder and principal to robbery. She was ordered Thursday to undergo competency evaluations before a trial date can be set, according to court records.