Friday, Feb. 23, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Seventeen-year-old Phillip Wilcoxson choked back tears at his sentencing as he apologized to the victim whose home he and four friends assaulted in an armed raid a year ago.
Actually, the teenager is lucky to have been in court since his victim, Evelyn Tankersley, shot him in the chest when he kicked in her bedroom door and screamed, "Freeze, bitch."
His attorney, Bucky Buchan-an, said that had the bullet from the .357-caliber pistol been an inch or two in either direction, Wilcoxson would have been killed.
Although Wilcoxson told District Judge Sally Loehrer that he turned his life around while in the county jail, she sentenced him Thursday to 10 years in prison.
"You and your cohorts were marauding like a pack of wild dogs," Loehrer told the teenager.
She could have put him behind bars for 16 years but acknowledged that he appears to have "matured a great deal" while awaiting trial on the felony charges of burglary and attempted grand larceny.
"I'm not sorry I got caught," Wilcoxson said. "I was doing some wild things."
Tankersley lamented in court that she is "living in my own prison" as a result of the break-in at her townhouse in a gated community on the west end of Charleston Boulevard.
Tankersley said she is seeing a therapist and has turned her home into a fortress with multiple locks, rolling metal shutters and a guard dog.
Deputy District Attorney Gerald Gardner said Tankersley also has added firepower in the home.
Tankersley has said that after firing three shots at Wilcoxson from her six-shot revolver, she realized there were several other bandits in the home and she only had three bullets remaining. She since has added a 16-shot 9 mm semiautomatic pistol to her night stand.
"Thank goodness Ms. Tankersley had a firearm and fired at the being who came through her door," Gardner said. "Nobody is safe anymore."
"Given the outrageousness of the conduct, it is reasonable to believe it could have resulted in much greater violence and harm (to Tankersley)," the prosecutor added.
Loehrer said she personally is opposed to handguns in the home because of the potential for children to be injured or killed, but said in Tankersley's case "it was advisable."
In asking for the maximum sentence, Gardner noted that Wilcoxson is facing robbery charges in an unrelated holdup involving a co-defendant in the Tankersley break-in and has "a string of juvenile offenses" on his record.
But Loehrer gave him a break with the 10-year sentence that will keep him behind bars for 2 1/2 years before he will be eligible for parole.
Wilcoxson and others were arrested at the hospital where he was taken for treatment of the gunshot wound to his chest.
Wilcoxson later confessed to police.
Warren Behrens, 22, and John Robertazza, 18, already have been given 6-year sentences for their roles in the February incident.
Seventeen-year-old Davin Toy Behrens, who has an extensive juvenile record and was said to be carrying a pistol into the home, has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Another teenager was convicted as a juvenile as part of a plea bargain.
Warren Behrens is the one who will be facing robbery charges with Wilcoxson in the unrelated case.
archive
