A 31-year-old gunman was sentenced Wednesday to 36 years in prison for shooting a man in the head in the parking lot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Westminster.
Thomas Thursby Flynn pleaded guilty Jan. 23 to attempted first-degree murder in the July shooting, Adams County prosecutors say. He also admitted to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and being a special offender in possession of a firearm.
The shooting happened on July 16, 2016, at the KFC at 92nd Avenue and Federal Boulevard. The 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office says 49-year-old Jerome Campbell was in his vehicle in the restaurant’s parking lot when he was shot in the head, but survived.
Flynn fled the scene, authorities say, but surrendered in to police the next day.
“Flynn, of Westminster, was on probation in a felony menacing case when the shooting took place,” the district attorney’s office said in a news release. “He posted $100,000 bond in the attempted-murder case and was re-arrested Sept. 29 when he was found in possession of more than 218 grams of methamphetamine and two handguns with fully loaded magazines.”
Prosecutors say Deputy District Attorney Natalie Scarpella asked that Flynn be punished with a lengthy sentence. “The only reason Mr. Flynn is not facing the rest of his life in prison is because Mr. Campbell miraculously survived being shot point blank in the face,” she said at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing.
Campbell told the judge overseeing the case that he lost vision in one eye as well as his sense of smell after being shot, authorities say.
