PALATKA, Fla. – A woman was sentenced Thursday in the 2022 stabbing death of her boyfriend and the victim’s family said they have waited more than two years for justice.
The case began in May 2022, when Palatka police were called to a home on South 14th Street in reference to a stabbing. Officers found 22-year-old Shiron Brooks on the floor with multiple stab wounds.
According to the incident report, a woman identified as Tykidra Leonard was standing over him, yelling, “come on,” followed by his name.
Leonard, who police said was crying at the scene, told officers she believed someone was breaking into the house and that she mistook Brooks — whom she identified as her boyfriend — for an intruder. Investigators reported finding a butcher-style knife on the floor next to a large pool of blood.
Martha Kearse, Brooks’ mother, said she never believed Leonard’s explanation.
“Never, never at his own home, never, then I knew he wasn’t an intruder. God is so good. Two weeks prior, he allowed us to put a Ring [camera] in his house,” That’s how we were able to prove that he never was an intruder," she said.
He was taken to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries.
“He had just left my guy house earlier that day and just to get a phone call around 11:30 a.m. or so that he had been to the hospital, I just didn’t think it was that bad,” Kearse said. “I thought he would be coming back home.”
Jail records show Leonard was later charged with murder and ordered held without bond.
For Brooks’ family, this sentencing was a long time coming.
“When she said that I sentenced you to all 50 I just broke down, I cried. I cried because I was like, justice is finally served. She didn’t get away,” Martha Kearse, Shiron’s mother, said.
She said going through this emotional case for two years has been overwhelming, but the sentencing brought a sense of release.
“It was a release,” Kearse said. “It was a day. Emotions were all over the place. It was a long time coming.”
Through their grief, Brooks’ family wants people to remember him as a father, a devoted son and someone who cared about the people around him.
“He wasn’t perfect. I never painted the picture of my son as perfect. Everybody has faults, he was stubborn, but the moral of the story is he was mine,” Kearse said.
While it doesn’t erase their pain...they said it gives them the first real step toward healing.