Teen gets life term for shooting, torching cabbie

Teen gets life term for shooting, torching cabbie

Earnest Collins placed his hand over his eyes as the guilty verdict was announced in court in this file photo.

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Story Published: May 9, 2008 at 10:39 AM PDT

Story Updated: Nov 20, 2008 at 7:36 PM PDT

By KOMO Staff & News Services

SEATTLE - A King County judge sentenced a 19-year-old SeaTac man to life in prison Friday for shooting a Seattle cab driver to death and then setting fire to his taxi last summer.

During his trial, Earnest Lenell Collins Jr. maintained he was not the cigarette-smoking gunman who killed Jagjit Singh from the back of Singh's cab.

But jurors convicted Collins last month of aggravated first-degree murder, believing he killed Singh to cover up a robbery. Jurors also found Collins guilty of first-degree arson for torching Singh's cab.

The shooting, done at point-blank range, had been caught on a surveillance camera mounted in the cab.

Singh was found dead of two gunshot wounds early in the morning of July 17, 2007, after a SeaTac resident reported the vehicle on fire and rolling backward. Singh had been working a late shift to raise money to bring his wife to the United States from India.

Robbery appeared to be the reason for the killing, according to documents filed by prosecutors. Friends and associates told investigators Collins had been losing money gambling with dice at a housing project in Seattle and talked of "jacking someone" or robbing cab drivers to get cash.

Collins then called the cab to a house using his name and cell phone number, and Singh drove the cab that responded to the call.

Collins fled the Northwest and went to Chicago after the killing last summer. But detectives quickly tracked him there.

A trail of pennies led from the crime scene to Collins' home in SeaTac, and several people recognized Collins' voice on a recording of the call he made to the cab company.

He was then tracked to Chicago and arrested.

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