Home Invader Facing Charges After Accomplice Shot and Killed

A Memphis man who took part in a home invasion is now facing multiple charges after his accomplice was shot and killed by someone in the apartment they invaded.

According to police in Memphis, Tennessee, Devonta Johnson and Zarian Sanders went to an apartment belonging to the mother of Johnson’s child. When she refused to answer the door, the pair kicked it in, and then allegedly moved a couch in front of the door to prevent anyone from leaving. 

Police say Johnson and Sanders then went into a bedroom and began beating a man they found there. 

The fight then moved outside, and that was when the child’s mother heard a gunshot.

The mother said Johnson was on the ground and told her that he was shot by the man who was assaulted in the bedroom.

The man who was assaulted in the bedroom spoke to officers and said a man he knows as “Shiesty,” who was later identified as Zarian Sanders, and Devonta Johnson came into the bedroom and assaulted him.

The victim was eventually able to wrest the pistol away from Johnson and managed to flee the apartment, but Johnson and Sanders pursued him. When they once again began to assault him, the victim fired at Johnson and struck him. 

After trying to ask an apartment resident to open the door, Sanders caught up with the victim and pointed a rifle at him, threatening to shoot him, and struck him on the side of the head with the rifle, authorities said.

The two fought over the rifle, and it went off three times. The victim gave the gun back to Sanders, who then ran off, police said.

Sanders was apprehended a short time later, and is now behind bars. 

It’s not the first time that Sanders has faced criminal charges. According to police, Sanders pleaded guilty to a felony charge of theft of a firearm less than $2,500 in September 2025. Why he was already back on the street just a year after that plea is still unknown, and authorities haven’t said how much prison time, if any, he was sentenced to as a result of the plea deal. 

The 23-year-old has been accused of especially aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, convicted felon in possession of a firearm, and employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. He has not, however, been charged in connection with the death of Johnson, thanks to a quirk of Tennessee law. 

Like many states, Tennessee has what’s known as a “felony murder” rule, and ordinarily an accomplice can be held responsible for a killing committed by another participant in the felony. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ruled way back in 1988, though, that when the killing of a co-conspirator is done by the intended victim in self-defense instead of by an act of the perpetrators in furtherance of the crime, the felony murder charge cannot be applied. 

That’s not the case in many other states, where the proximate-cause theory of felony murder is settled law. In one of those jurisdictions, Sanders potentially could face felony murder on the theory that Johnson’s death was a foreseeable consequence of their armed home invasion, regardless of who fired the fatal shot.

Hopefully this doesn’t result in yet another plea deal for Sanders, and this incident has been a wakeup call for the individuals in the apartment that was invaded. Locked doors can be kicked in. Windows can be broken. And while having a firearm doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to successfully use it in self-defense, I’d say it’s much better to have one on hand than to hope you can wrestle one away from your armed attackers. 

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