MILFORD, Conn. — Nearly seven years after committing the crime, an Ansonia man was found guilty by a jury Tuesday of the 2017 murder of Jajuan Benavides in Derby, according to a release from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice.
Jacob “Jewla” Freeman was convicted in the Superior Court of Milford for the shooting death of Benavides, 21, on Anson Street in Derby on Aug. 11, 2017, prosecutors said. Around 1:48 a.m., an individual in a mask dressed in all black chased Benavides down Anson Street, shooting him three times.
According to prosecutors, surveillance footage and call detail records revealed that Freeman was in the area of Anson and 6th Streets and interacted with Benavides. Freeman was seen leaving the area around 11:55 p.m. on Aug. 10.
Around 18 months after the shooting, prosecutors said that a jailhouse witness provided them details about the murder, including that Freeman told him he returned to the Anson Street area masked up and pulled his gun out on Benavides and shot him, prosecutors said.
The witness told investigators that Freeman told him he shot the victim, “stood over him and let him have it,” and watched as he fell to the ground, prosecutors said. Freeman told the witness that Benavides was saying “chill Jewla chill” and that Freeman was wearing black pants, a black hoodie and a mask at the time of the crime.
The witness refused to testify at trial, but his prior testimony at an earlier probable cause hearing about the murder of Benavides was admitted at this trial, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, 12 witnesses testified for the state, including three witnesses to the crime, who indicated what they saw that night as well as a resident who testified what she heard on the night of the shooting.
The state also admitted into evidence a rap video made by Freeman a month after the murder in which he raps specific admissions about how the shooting occurred. Prosecutors said it took the Superior Court less than a day of deliberations to reach its verdict.
Freeman will be sentenced on Sept. 23 in Milford Superior Court.
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Dalton Zbierski is a digital content producer and writer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at dzbierski@FOX61.com.
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