St. Louis Man Sentenced to 60 Years in Prison for Carjackings, Jail Escape and Fatal Shooting of De Smet High School Football Coach

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White on Wednesday sentenced a St. Louis, Missouri man involved in fatal and nonfatal carjackings and a jail escape to 60 years in prison.

Kurt Wallace, 31, shot the drivers during three separate carjackings in 2017 that were set up via a dating app and Wallace’s co-defendant, Jherrica Dixon. On Oct. 16, 2017, he fatally shot Jaz Granderson, a football coach at De Smet Jesuit High School, while stealing his Jeep Grand Cherokee in St. Louis.

Wallace shot the driver of a 2005 Chevrolet Monte Carlo in the shoulder in the 300 block of Walsh Street in St. Louis on Sept. 16, 2017. On Oct. 15, 2017, while carjacking a Cadillac CTS in the 5800 block of Kennerly Avenue in St. Louis, Wallace shot that driver in the leg.

Wallace was indicted in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in November 2017 and detained in jail pending trial.  Wallace escaped from jail on July 15, 2019. He and fellow inmate James Flannel then carjacked a vehicle before leading police on a multi-jurisdiction pursuit that ended with Wallace crashing the vehicle.

Wallace pleaded guilty in September 2023 to four counts of carjacking, two counts of discharging a firearm in furtherance of carjacking, one count of discharging a firearm in furtherance of carjacking resulting in death and one count of escape.

Wallace is the seventh individual convicted in connection with a series of violent crimes.

Dixon, 30, pleaded guilty to four counts of carjacking, three counts of discharge and brandishing of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and one count of discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death. She admitted setting up a series of meetings with men so that they could be carjacked by her then-boyfriend Wallace and others. Judge White sentenced her in December to 19 years in prison. 

Flannel, 43, was sentenced in November 2021 to life in prison for the fatal carjacking of Boris Iouioukine, a Laclede Cab Company driver on June 25, 2018. He is scheduled to be sentenced February 20 for the escape and carjacking.

Floyd Barber, 28, was sentenced in December to 22 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to two counts of carjacking, one count of discharge and brandishing of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and one count of discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death. He admitted the Sept. 9, 2017 carjacking of a Kia Optima in St. Louis and admitted participating in the carjacking of Granderson and the fatal drug robbery of Ladareace Pool, 26, in the 4700 block of Goodfellow Avenue on Oct. 3, 2017. 

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey sentenced Jerell Henderson, 33, to 42 ½ years in prison for Pool’s robbery and murder. Larenta Jones, 30, was sentenced to 30 years in prison and Stephan Jones, 33, the driver the day of Pool’s murder, was sentenced to five years in prison on a drug charge.

“While this sentencing, as well the others, will not bring back Mr. Granderson, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will always work to bring trigger-pullers who terrorize our communities to justice” said Kansas City Field Division Special Agent in Charge Bernard Hansen.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, the Troy Police Department, the Saint Ann Police Department and the Saint Louis County Police Department.