A Connecticut man pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a Derby woman two years ago in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
Jakiy Tramaine Corey Keith, 26, had been facing a charge of first-degree murder in the death of 29-year-old Kayla Wright of Derby after police said he shot her multiple times early in the morning on Feb. 2, 2024, inside a home on Route 100 in Troy.
Keith, as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, pleaded guilty in Orleans County Superior criminal court in Newport to the second-degree murder charge as well as a count of unauthorized removal of a body.
Keith, of Hartford, Connecticut, has not yet been sentenced in the case. Instead, Judge Rory Thibault ordered the state Department of Corrections to prepare a report ahead of a sentencing hearing, providing information on Keith’s background as well as any mitigating or aggravated circumstances. Such reports are generally conducted for sentencing on felony charges.
The plea deal allows Keith’s attorney, David Sleigh, and the prosecutor, Orleans County State’s Attorney Farzana Leyva, to argue for any sentence allowed by law. The charge of second-degree murder alone carries a prison sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
Had Keith been convicted of first-degree murder, that charge carries a sentence of 35 years to life in prison.
Thibault said he would look to set a sentencing hearing in June.
Keith pleaded guilty earlier this month in federal court in Vermont to charges of conspiracy to distribute and possess controlled drugs and using a firearm in relation to a drug-trafficking crime.
Also, according to the plea deal, the sentence imposed on the state offenses will run at the same time as any prison term Keith receives on the federal drug and firearms charges.
Under terms of a plea deal in that case, the defense and prosecutors agreed that the “appropriate term” in prison term the judge should impose should not exceed 20 years. A sentencing hearing in that case is also set for June.
According to police, the shooting at the residence in Troy in February 2024 stemmed from drug trafficking taking place there and around northern Vermont and Keith’s fear that Wright was going to report his illegal activities to police.
Several other people who had been at the home around the time of the shooting have been arrested related to the investigation into the case on drug and other charges. Charging documents in those cases stated that Wright had visited the home in the days leading up to the shooting.
Wright’s body was found days after the shooting inside a large container on a sandbar in the Missisquoi River in Troy, according to court records. An autopsy later determined her death to be a homicide, resulting from a gunshot wound to her head.
Keith, in earlier interviews with police, had denied involvement in the fatal shooting, at one point telling authorities he was at the residence at the time and had been sleeping, according to court records.
Keith has been held in custody following his arrest about a week after the killing.
