{"id":300855,"date":"2014-05-13T12:57:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T17:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=300855"},"modified":"2014-05-14T12:55:48","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T17:55:48","slug":"mall-parking-lot-shooter-gets-life-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=300855","title":{"rendered":"Mall Parking Lot Shooter Gets Life in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2014\/05\/rickynealjrmugtpd1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2014\/05\/rickynealjrmugtpd1-150x150.png\" alt=\"rickynealjrmugtpd1\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-300856\" \/><\/a>TYLER \u2014 The man found guilty of killing Chapel Hill native Christopher Mass in the Tyler mall parking lot has been sentenced to life in prison by a Smith County jury.  Ricky Neal Jr. was found guilty of murder on May 7. He will be up for parole in 30 years, according to Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham. The verdict stems from the shooting death of Mass on February 9, 2013. In addition to the murder charge, authorities placed an additional charge against Neal after police determined he shot at Jonathan Lamone Dews, 29, of Tyler. The aggravated assault charge will be tried separately. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to Tyler police, around 9:15 a.m. the morning of February 9, officials were dispatched to a shooting in the mall\u2019s parking lot near J.C. Penney. Authorities say Neal and his girlfriend went to the mall to buy shoes at Champs that day. As they entered the mall, Neal noticed a group of men, one of whom he had an issue with about tweeting his girlfriend on Twitter. A confrontation ensued between Neal and another man from the group inside the mall. The confrontation continued to the parking lot. According to authorities, Neal then pulled out a gun and shot the victim, later identified as Mass, multiple times, killing him. Mass was a former Chapel Hill High School football and basketball player. He attended Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, where he also played football. <\/p>\n<p>According to Officer Don Martin with the Tyler Police Deparment, Neal was cooperative with authorities, and was taken into custody. The prosecution had asked for a life sentence for Neal, while the defense requested up to 20 years behind bars. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TYLER \u2014 The man found guilty of killing Chapel Hill native Christopher Mass in the Tyler mall parking lot has been sentenced to life in prison by a Smith County jury. Ricky Neal Jr. was found guilty of murder on May 7. He will be up for parole in 30 years, according to Smith County &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=300855\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mall Parking Lot Shooter Gets Life in Prison<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 01:53:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300855"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300963,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300855\/revisions\/300963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}