Teenager Sentenced in Adoptive Mother’s Slaying

Joseph Davidson was sentenced Wednesday to 19 years to life in prison for killing his adoptive mother.

Davidson displayed no emotion as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victor Person imposed the sentence.

A jury on Dec. 16 found Davidson, 17, who was tried as an adult, guilty of second-degree murder for shooting Tinann Turner Davidson on Aug. 16, 1996. Prosecutors argued that he put in earplugs before shooting her in the forehead as she sat down to a meal of fast-food chicken in her Glendale apartment.

After the shooting, Davidson, who was then 14, dumped the gun in bushes, called 911 and told a police dispatcher he had killed his mother. In a taped confession, which was played for the jury, Davidson told police his mother abused him verbally and physically for years and that he hated her and always said, “One day I’m going to smoke her.”

Davidson’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Mark De Wit, said he has already appealed the case. He said Davidson, who will receive 1,406 days of custody credit, would probably be reviewed for parole by the time he turns 30.