A Pontiac man who made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded down a first-degree homicide charge was sentenced Tuesday in Oakland County Circuit Court.
Troy Dwayne Santos, 31, was ordered to spend 15 to 60 years in prison for the slaying of Frederick Lamar Betty, 39, who was shot to death outside a Pontiac store in 2021. Another man was also shot by Santos outside the store and survived. For that crime, Santos was handed a concurrent sentence of 15 to 30 years behind bars.
Judge Jacob Cunningham, who sentenced Santos, gave him an additional two years incarceration for two counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, with credit for 395 days.
Santos had faced a first-degree homicide charge and a sentence of life in prison if convicted. But last November, on the day his trial was to start, he accepted a deal from prosecutors and pleaded no contest to second-degree homicide.
The shootings happened Halloween 2021 outside Lions Food Market, located at 640 Auburn Ave. in Pontiac. According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, deputies dispatched there for multiple reports of shots being fired found Betty lying on the pavement in front of the store. He’d been shot several times. The other shooting victim was inside the store, with a gunshot wound to the foot.
Santos fired at both men as they walked out of the store, the sheriff’s office said. Betty died several hours later at an area hospital.
Three days after the slaying, an arrest warrant was issued for Santos in connection with the shootings. He evaded law enforcement for more than a year before the county’s Fugitive Apprehension Team arrested him at a home in Southfield.
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