Kelvin Atkins, 39, was sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in prison Friday for the execution-style murder of his former girlfriend.
Judge Calvin Johnson handed down the life term in a New Orleans courtroom after a jury convicted the parolee of second-degree murder in the July 3, 2023, killing of Johnshane “Nay” Powell, 33. The sentence carries no possibility of parole.
“Here we are again looking failure in the face, looking you in the face,” Johnson told Atkins at the sentencing hearing.
Powell, a mother of two daughters, had feared exactly this outcome. In the days before her death, she had contacted police to report that Atkins slapped her, pulled her hair, bit her, and stole a gun from her purse, according to authorities. Atkins was arrested on domestic-abuse charges two days before the slaying.
“What happens if y’all let him go and I end up dead tomorrow,” Powell asked officers, according to prosecutors.
Despite her warning, Atkins posted bail and walked free. Prosecutors said he returned to kill Powell because he feared she would testify against him in the domestic-abuse case, which would have triggered a heavier sentence due to his prior felony conviction.
Authorities said Atkins unloaded 19 rounds from a Glock pistol equipped with a drum magazine into Powell on a Louisiana street. As she lay dying, body-camera footage captured Powell identifying her killer as “K,” a nickname abbreviating Atkins’ first name, prosecutors said.
Atkins’ path to conviction was not straightforward. His first trial ended in a deadlock, with the jury finding him guilty of two lesser charges but unable to reach a verdict on Powell’s murder. The weeklong retrial that followed included emotional testimony from Powell’s family.
Criminal District Judge Kimya Holmes, Powell’s aunt, took the stand to describe the moment she had to tell her niece’s two daughters that their mother was gone.
“Nothing can prepare you for that,” Holmes testified.
Holmes also offered the court a portrait of the woman Atkins took from her family.
“She loved hard, and if she cared about you, she protected you with all that she had,” Holmes said, referring to her niece.
The September guilty verdict on the second-degree murder charge made Friday’s mandatory life sentence a foregone conclusion under Louisiana law. Atkins had been on parole for a separate felony at the time of the killing, making his release on bail in the domestic case a point of sharp scrutiny.
Prosecutors emphasized the systemic breakdown that allowed a parolee facing new violent charges to return to the streets and eliminate the witness against him. The 19 shots fired from a weapon with a high-capacity drum magazine underscored the calculated nature of the attack.