Jeffrey Locker's killer pleas guilty to 2008 murder

Posted

Kenneth Minor, the Harlem resident who helped Woodmere resident Jeffrey Locker kill himself in 2008, plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Sept. 29. Minor will be sentenced to 12 years in prison.
He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2011 and sentenced to 20 years to life, but the conviction was overturned two years later based on incorrect instructions given to the jury by the judge during that trial.
Locker, a motivational speaker, was shown during the initial trial to be in substantial debt, and shortly before he was killed had purchased a $12 million life insurance policy and had a total of $18 million in life insurance. Neither policy would pay out for suicide.
Minor entered the plea on Monday after Justice Laura A. Ward denied a motion to dismiss an indictment based on the grounds that he should not be charged with both murder and assisted suicide.
Dan Gotlin, Minor’s lawyer, said he will appeal the conviction on procedural grounds as the most recent indictment against minor contains both the murder charge and an assisted suicide count. Gotlin said the charges are mutually exclusive.