Crime and punishment: the Zaria McKeever case

In an MSR exclusive, Tiffynnie Epps shares her family’s journey in seeking justice for the murder of her sister Zaria McKeever, a crime that is at the heart of the juvenile justice reform debate.  

Tiffynnie Epps grew up as an army brat. Her parents both served in the military, which took their family from Georgia to states like Michigan and Alabama. They eventually settled in Minnesota roughly 20 years ago when Epps’ youngest sister, Zaria McKeever, was just three years old. 

“She’s the big baby,” Epps laughed as she spoke about her sister. McKeever graduated from Champlin Park High School and went on to receive a degree at PCI Academy in Plymouth. According to Epps, her sister loved to do makeup and enjoyed cooking and dancing.

The two were close and plotted their life out together. McKeever had already planned for Epps to be her babysitter long before she gave birth to her daughter. The two sisters got pregnant around the same time and gave birth to their children one day apart. Not long after sharing this life-changing milestone, Epps and her family experienced the tragic loss. 

Epps recalled the night that she first heard about her sister McKeever’s murder. She received a call from one of her sister’s friends who was on the phone with 23-year-old McKeever when suddenly the line cut out. Concerned, Epps rushed over to her sister’s apartment in Brooklyn Park. 

There she came across an ambulance and police vehicles parked in front of the building, confirming her worst fears. Officers came to Epps and informed her that her sister hadn’t made it. Six months later Epps and her family are fighting to ensure that McKeever receives justice following her murder. 

The case has turned into a prosecutorial tug-of-war between the Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and the state’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, who was appointed by Governor Tim Walz to take over the case. 

Three adults, including Erick Haynes, the 23-year-old father of McKeever’s one-year-old daughter, and two juveniles have been charged with second-degree murder. According to Haynes, he had bought a gun and handed it to the two young men to use on McKeever’s boyfriend. He then drove them to her apartment and instructed them to break her door down, resulting in the killing of McKeever. 

The fate of the juveniles charged—two brothers 15 and 17 years old—is at the heart of this conflict between the county attorney and state officials. 

Change in prosecution

Former Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman was in the process of certifying the juveniles as adults. However, when Moriarty took over the case earlier this year, she moved to offer the juveniles a plea deal in exchange for their testimony against Haynes. If the plea deal went forth, the juveniles would serve just two years at the juvenile center if they excelled during their sentencing rehabilitation program.

The decision blindsided Epps and her family, who had been in communication with the county attorney’s office every step along the way. They received contact from Moriarty’s team informing them after the fact that they had made the decision not to try the juveniles as adults. 

“We got a phone call saying that we need to have a Zoom meeting and it was with Sarah Davis,” Epps said. “She told us that they offered a plea deal and that we didn’t have any say in it. They just told us that’s what it was. We just thought they were letting us know what they were planning to do. But they already had offered it [a plea deal] to them.”

Epps viewed the decision as Moriarty signaling her commitment to juvenile justice reform, but she doesn’t believe this is the case to stake her campaign promises on.

“She was a public defender for over 30 years. So, her mindset is still stuck at public defending,” Epps said. “That’s why she’s helping the two murderers, in this case, more so, versus actually being there for the victim’s family and standing up for the victim who is no longer here.”

Moriarty was elected Hennepin County attorney on November 8 of last year. Later that same night, McKeever would have her life snuffed out at the hands of the two young brothers. 

Efforts to reverse the plea deal

Soon after the conversation with Moriarty’s staff, Epps took to the state capitol to get in contact with the governor’s office. She also tried to get a meeting with Ellison’s office to make the case for them to take over this case from the county attorney.

“I went up there like at least twice a week, sometimes three times a week,” she said. Epps and her family began to look at all their options including starting a petition for the attorney general to take over the case. 

During this effort, Epps received an email from the governor’s office that informed her that there wasn’t anything that could be done because the county attorney had informed them that they had reached a plea deal with both juveniles. This came as a surprise to McKeever’s family since they knew that neither one of the individuals in question had reached a plea deal. 

Undeterred by this news, Epps reached out again to request that the state attorney general’s office be brought in to prosecute the adults, including Haynes’s sister and her partner, who are alleged to have helped in stalking McKeever in the hours prior to her death. 

Epps also reached out to others involved in the case, including the lead detective, to see what more could be done. In speaking with the detective, she discovered that the plea deals weren’t complete and that there was still a chance for the case to be taken over by the attorney general’s office. 

“It wasn’t done. He had to go to the juvenile center to get the statement, to make the proffer complete for everything,” she said. “Once we figured out it [the plea deal] was still on the table, that it wasn’t on the record, we wanted [the suspects to be prosecuted] like how we said. We want all the cases to be tried [as adults].”  

Persistence pays off

Epps’s tenacity and consistency paid off when she received a call from Governor Walz on April 6, the day before the 15-year-old alleged shooter was set to take a plea deal, that he would be appointing Ellison to the case. Overjoyed, McKeever’s loved ones finally felt as though they were now able to seek justice following her murder. 

While Epps wants these juveniles to be tried as adults, she expressed that she is not against juvenile justice reform. She stated that those who are first-time offenders and commit crimes such as carjackings and robberies should have the chance to turn their lives around. But those charged with heinous crimes such as murder should not be given that same leniency. 

Although McKeever’s family wants the juveniles tried as adults, they don’t want them sentenced to life in prison. “It would have to be at least 23 years—that’s how old she was—for the juveniles, and then life for the adults because those guys were aware of their actions. Even the juveniles were aware too,” Epps said.

One year for every year McKeever was alive—that is what Epps is seeking in the trial for her sister’s murder. She knows that it’s likely that the juveniles would only serve two-thirds of their sentence, but she hopes that there is an effort to prosecute everyone involved to the full extent of the law. 

The MSR will continue to follow this story by talking to prosecutors on both sides of the issue as well as advocates for juvenile justice reform and missing and murdered Black women and girls.