A Memphis man was sentenced to hundreds of years in prison. He isn’t Tennessee’s first.
Ezekiel Kelly has an emotional reaction after pleading guilty in court Aug. 13, 2025. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)
In 1994, an Oklahoma City judge sentenced convicted child rapist Charles Scott Robinson to 30,000 years in prison, 5,000 years for each of the six charges he was facing. It is the longest prison sentence ever given to a single person charged with multiple offenses, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
While the longest sentence ever given in Tennessee is not something Guinness tracks, one man likely made the list Wednesday, Aug, 13, for the state’s most severe punishments.
Ezekiel Kelly, 22, pleaded guilty Wednesday to carrying out a city-wide shooting spree in September 2022, killing three people and wounding three others during the rampage. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge James Jones Jr. sentenced him to three life sentences without parole plus an additional 221 years for the 28 charges he was facing.
Several local attorneys told The Daily Memphian that Kelly’s sentence is the longest they’ve seen someone receive during their time practicing. Others said they’ve seen cases that got close or were even longer.
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Aarron Fleming
Once an intern, he never left, joining the staff full-time in 2022 as an education reporter. He moved to public safety in 2023, where he covered some of the city’s biggest court cases, including the criminal trials for those charged in the deaths of Tyré Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also chronicled the Shelby County Jail and the deaths that have occurred at the facility.
He now provides suburban coverage, focusing on Desoto County and the surrounding municipalities.
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