ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Three teenagers have admitted their guilt in an armed robbery that ended with a Rochester father dead.

Forty-two-year-old Kailee White was killed in July 2022 on Jay Street. Three teens were there, but it was 19-year-old Jeyzon Cotton who admitted pulling the trigger. He was sentenced to 24 years behind bars on Tuesday.

White was sitting in his vehicle around 7 a.m. July 30, 2022 when he was shot and killed.

“It broke me. It broke me,” recalled his longtime friend Sidney Parris. “I fell to the floor at work.”

What broke him further were the details of White’s murder.

“The young lady tried to distract him and he stopped the car and while he’s trying to figure out how to help her – this is the craziest thing – figure out how to help her, these two men come up for behind. Men! I don’t want to hear, ‘They’re 18.’ I don’t want to hear that. These two men come up from behind and they take his life. They shoot him in the head,” Parris said through tears. 

Police say Cotton, along with Tyron Sanders and India Barr-Blount, planned to rob White.

“Kailee would have given you the shirt off his back, if you’d have asked him for whatever you were [taking] he would have gladly said, ‘Hey, here you go. You’re in a rough spot,” said Parris. 

Both Sanders and Barr-Blount pleaded guilty to attempted robbery on Thursday. Both are facing sentences of 10 years behind bars.