Man sentenced in Jan. Kentwood murder

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - The man found guilty of a January Kentwood homicide will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Charles Brown, 20, was sentenced on four charges:

• For a count of first-degree homicide, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• For a count of felony firearms, he was sentenced to two years in prison to be served consecutively to his other sentences.
• For a count of armed robbery and a count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, he was sentenced to 40 to 80 years in prison for each count.

Brown shot and killed 29-year-old Michael Bockheim as Bockheim sat in a van in the parking lot of the Arbor Lane apartment complex in Kentwood.

The person with Bockheim at the time of the shooting initially told police he was stopped at a traffic light at Clyde Park Avenue and Burton Street SW in Wyoming when two men, one armed with a handgun, approached him, demanding money and shot Bockheim. But the next day, authorities tracked down the actual crime scene and determined that the shooting was not random.

Brown was 19 when he was convicted of those four charges in November.

Vernon Heath, 21, turned himself in to police in March. He pleaded guilty to armed robbery in June and was sentenced in late November.