Colorado teen tried as adult for 2025 carjacking found not guilty

Brighton, CO – On November 6, the Colorado 17th Judicial District’s case against Lourease “Manman” Wilson concluded with a not guilty verdict on all charges following a weeks-long criminal trial.

Wilson, now 17 years old, was facing decades in prison for alleged crimes relating to an armed carjacking on March 11, 2025. The incident resulted in multiple shots fired from a moving vehicle—one hitting a nearby empty building—and the suspects crashing the stolen Dodge Ram and fleeing the scene. No one involved in the incident was harmed.

Law enforcement responded with 30 officers from multiple agencies. Wilson and several other juveniles were questioned near the scene and arrested for suspicion of involvement in the crimes. Over a year later, Wilson was formally charged as an adult by the Adams County District Attorney’s Office for first-degree attempted murder, aggravated robbery, possession of a handgun by a juvenile, and crime of violence. The last charge is a sentence enhancer meant to increase mandatory prison time or restrict probation for a felony conviction.

The sentence enhancer, as well as the efforts to try Wilson as an adult, have been opposed by local community groups like the Denver-Aurora Community Action Committee (DACAC), who have called them “a severe injustice.” DACAC followed the case for months, holding protests demanding the district attorney stop trying children as adults, as well as for community control of the police.

The prosecutors representing the Colorado 17th Judicial District called several witnesses to testify against Wilson, including law enforcement present during the initial response and on the subsequent investigation. Expert witnesses provided testimony for evidence collection and analysis by the state’s forensic crime lab.

One key moment in the trial included a detective called to the stand, who revealed that when he was questioning a witness on the day of the incident, the witness informed him that one of his neighbors had home security camera footage that would be useful for the investigation. The detective failed to make any attempts to collect the footage, contact the neighbor, or inform any other officers about the existence of the footage. The footage then became unrecoverable by the time of trial.

Another defining moment was when crime scene investigation showed that none of the prints lifted from the scene matched Wilson’s fingerprint profile. DNA collected from the scene also excluded Wilson as a suspect.

The jury found Wilson not guilty on all charges. Wilson, still a teenager, has been in juvenile detention the majority of the length of the nearly two-year case. During this time, Wilson was described as a “model inmate.”

#BrightonCO #CO #InJusticeSystem #DACAC