Michael McGlothan, a Canyon Country man who pleaded to the shooting death of 21-year-old Ledarion Allen Jr. of Lancaster, and the wounding of 30-year-old Shatari Cooks, was formally sentenced today in San Fernando.
McGlothan was sentenced to 28 years, four months in state prison, in accordance with a plea deal he worked out on the eve of his trial for the murder and assault.
“He pleaded out back in November 3 to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm,” said Ricardo Santiago, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, noting he was already scheduled for a jury trial at that point.
The Canyon Country truck driver fled to New York and almost made it to Canada following the shooting that took place in an apartment near the intersection of Sierra Highway and Soledad Canyon Road.
Michael Joe McGlothan, 54, was 51 when he was arrested for the crime at a toll road in Buffalo, following a nationwide manhunt. The shooting he was sentenced for Wednesday took place May 6, 2015.
During the manhunt, detectives received many tips indicating the wanted man was in the San Gabriel Valley and the west side of Los Angeles, Lt. Eddie Hernandez with the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Homicide Bureau said at the time of the arrest.
“But then we tracked him circling the area near the Pennsylvania-New York border,” he said in June 2015. “Once we got a feeling he was heading north to Canada, we decided to take him down.”