July 14--A man who prosecutors say plotted with his longtime girlfriend and her daughter's boyfriend to rob and kill the couple's drug dealer has been sentenced to 29 years in prison.
Otto Lee pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder in the February 2009 killing of Michael Dabney, whose body was found March 11, 2009, authorities said. His longtime girlfriend, Willetta Ellis, was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison.
Dabney was found dead in a hallway of an abandoned building in Chicago. Police did not release any details of the killing at the time, except to say that Dabney was found about 10:15 a.m. March 11 in the 3200 block of West Walnut Street and detectives were conducting a homicide investigation. But Ellis admitted to investigators that she and her longtime boyfriend, Lee, and her daughter's boyfriend, Darvell Williams -- who also is charged with murder -- plotted to kill Dabney, said Cook County state's attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton.
Ellis and Lee regularly bought drugs from Dabney on credit, paying off the debts to him usually around the first of each month when Ellis' daughter received her Social Security disability payment, prosecutors said. After they accumulated a debt of $1,400, Ellis and Lee came up with a scheme to rob Dabney and recruited Williams, the father of Ellis' daughter's child, to shoot Dabney, prosecutors said.
Ellis, Lee and Williams arranged to drive with Dabney to the bank where Ellis' daughter had an account, and Lee gave Williams a gun, prosecutors said. About 8:30 a.m. Feb. 27, 2009, Dabney went to the home in the 1500 block of West 15th Street where the three lived to go with them to pick up the money Ellis owed him, prosecutors said.
The four got into a car and started toward the bank, and after a while, Williams, who was in the passenger seat behind Dabney, shot him in the head, prosecutors said. When Dabney turned toward Williams, Williams shot him again, this time in the chest, prosecutors said.
After the shooting, Ellis got out of the car and walked home, while Lee dumped Dabney's body in a stairwell of the abandoned building, prosecutors said.
Ellis, Lee and Williams were arrested soon after Dabney's body was found -- court records show they were charged March 13, 2009 -- and in a video-recorded statement, Ellis admitted her role in the slaying, prosecutors said.
Lee was sentenced Monday afternoon by Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Joseph Hennelly. Williams is awaiting trial.
