Just as a jury was about to be selected, a 22-year-old Alabama man pleaded guilty Monday to murder in the May 2024 shooting death of 17-year-old transgender teenager Tayy Dior Thomas.

In a case the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office called a “senseless murder,” Carl Mitchell Washington Jr. was sentenced to 25 years in prison as part of a plea deal that resulted in Mobile County Circuit Judge Brandy Hambright dismissing a charge of shooting into an occupied vehicle, according to news station WALA.