Court Cases | Home invasion, death lead to 27-year sentence
LOS ANGELES
Shawnavon Curley last week was given a 27-year sentence from a federal judge in Prescott for his involvement in a home invasion that left one man dead and four other members of the family suffering severe injuries.
After serving his sentence, he will be under supervised release for five years.
On Sept. 13, 2019, M.W. and his wife and their adult daughter and two teenage sons were sleeping at 3 a.m. when Curley and Armando Whiterock and two juveniles broke into the house through the front door.
For the next 90 minutes they were kept from leaving by the intruders who used aluminum bats on M.W. and his family members when they tried to get out of the house. The house was located in Sweetwater, Arizona.
According to court records, the intruders kept asking for money and M.W. told them there was none. They ransacked the house, destroying anything they picked up as they looked for valuables.
During the fights, M.W. was struck in the head with one of the bats. He later died from blunt-force trauma to the head.
At one point, the intruders started a fire in a back room threatening to burn the house down.
Curley also kept asking for Q and became angry when he learned he was not there. They were also told if they tried to leave, they would be killed.
When the intruders left, they took the keys to M.W.’s vehicle and drove away. Once they were gone, the family called the police.
The Navajo Police and the FBI had no problem learning the intruders’ names since they were local and well-known by all the family members. All four were arrested that day.
They had gone only a short distance when they wrecked the vehicle. Curley was captured after a short pursuit near M.W.’s house. One of the juveniles was found where the car was wrecked. Whiterock and the other juvenile were were taken into custody later that day.
Curley later said the decision to break into the house the previous evening was made when some people threatened Whiterock. They believed, for some reason, that those people lived in M.W.’s house. One of the persons who threatened Whiterock was known as Q.
Curley also said he and the others had been drinking through the night and early morning.
Whiterock has also pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 25. Juvenile cases and their outcomes are not made public.
Man arrested for sexual abuse of child
Leonard Yazzie, 39, of Pine Hill, New Mexico, was arrested last week by FBI agents and is now being held in custody in Albuquerque on charges of sexual abuse of a child. He is scheduled to have a detention hearing on Friday.
Court records said he was accused of engaging in a sexual act with a female on the Navajo Reservation who was less than 12 years old. The action reportedly occurred between March of 2016 and March of 2017.
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