Austin man sentenced to 32 years for killing woman who was playing with a stun gun

An Austin man was sentenced Friday to more than 32 years in prison for shooting and killing a 20-year-old woman in her home in July 2021 after he warned her to stop playing around with a stun gun.

Me’darian L. Mcgruder, 29, was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder in February and one count each of manslaughter, possessing a firearm as a violent felon and domestic assault. Law enforcement charged Mcgruder in August 2021 with killing Tyesha Gills, also of Austin, at her home.

Mcgruder was arrested in October of that year.

He was sentenced Friday to about 32 years in prison on one of the second-degree murder counts. He also will serve a concurrent five-year sentence for firearms possession.

According to the criminal complaint:

Officers who went to the home about 2 a.m. July 31 found Gills in the living room with a gunshot wound to the chest. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Officers noticed a bloodstained stun gun, designed for self-defense, near a couch.

A witness helped police identify the shooter as Mcgruder.

Court documents quoted the witness as saying the group was “laughing, joking and having a good time.” At some point, Gills set off a stun gun. Mcgruder had a handgun and said, “Stop playing with me before I shoot you.”

Gills kept activating the stun gun, prompting Mcgruder to warn her again before shooting her.

“You just really shot me,” the witness said she heard Gills say.

Mcgruder later testified in court that his gun accidentally went off after he received a shock, but Mower County Judge Jeffrey Kritzer, in a written verdict, found Mcgruder’s testimony was not credible. Kritzer found Mcgruder had intended to shoot Gills after warning her, getting his gun out and chambering it.

The gun’s distance, as well as the bullet’s path “also shows that Mr. Mcgruder held the gun at an angle with respect to Tyesha Gills’ body, at the time he discharged it, that made the shooting highly likely to cause death,” Kritzer wrote in February. “That is also credible evidence that Mr. Mcgruder not only intended to shoot Tyesha Gills but intended to kill her.”

Mcgruder’s criminal history in Minnesota includes a conviction in January 2020 for second-degree assault in connection with brandishing a gun during a domestic incident in Austin.