Butler County Sheriff’s detectives and Fairfield Twp. police say the incident began with a June 7 theft of Hill’s phone and cash in Fairfield Twp., and that two groups met June 10 to fight in the park. Gunfire was reported at about 10 p.m.
In addition to Hill and Moody, Zyshaun Johnson, 19, of Cincinnati, also was shot, and he recovered.
Two of Hill’s sisters and his parents gave emotional statements about the loss of the man who had graduated from high school just two weeks before slaying.
LaShonda Hill said Moody gunned down her son “with a rifle like he was hunting.” She noted her son was shot in the chest and the right side of the head.
“He was a smart, funny, handsome,” LaShonda Hill said. “Not a day goes by that I don’t cry. I have to visit my son in the cemetery.”
Antaun Hill Sr. held his son’s football jersey when he stood just a few feet away from Moody. Hill Jr. had planned to play football at Independence Community College in Kansas.
“He didn’t just kill one person, he killed my family,” Hill said.
He looked over at Moody, who looked straight ahead during the sentencing hearing and offered no statement.
Hill said his son was not a gang member or part of the “Fairfield mafia.”
“He happened to go to a fight, and he should have come home from that fight,” Hill said.
Then he turned to the packed courtroom and the other inmates waiting for their hearings and said, ”To everyone in this courtroom right how, I want to say take the (beating), don’t pull out a gun.”
Judge Jennifer McElfresh sentenced Moody to the maximum of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 18 years.
Romel Velasquez, 18, of Cincinnati, was sentenced in October to 24 months in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated assault with a gun specification for his role in the shootout.
Velasquez confessed he had a gun and made a choice to go to this “zone of danger” with that gun after a social media announcement about a “big fight,” according to prosecutors. Velasquez shot Moody, according to the investigation.
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