Man pleads guilty to south Minneapolis murder

A Minneapolis man has pleaded guilty to shooting and killing a man last year.

Court records show that 32-year-old Dajohn Cortez Ramon Yarborough changed his plea Tuesday and admitted to fatally shooting 28-year-old Darrell Lamont Sims II on April 2, 2022, in south Minneapolis.

As part of the plea deal, he agreed to a 40-year prison sentence — the maximum allowed for the offense — in exchange for prosecutors not seeking a first-degree murder indictment against him.

He’s the second person to plead guilty to murder in Sims’ death, after Brian Swearegene did the same this past April.

Police found Sims critically injured from a gunshot wound to his chest near the intersection of 24th Street and Elliot Avenue South on April 2, 2022. He was taken to a hospital but later died from his injuries.

Court documents state that police were able to identify Yarborough and Swearegene as the people responsible for his death thanks to security footage from the front of the apartment building Sims was shot in front of.

Swearegene told investigators the shooting was related to the shooting of his associate a couple weeks earlier, although he didn’t say who was killed and said he wasn’t sure who killed the associate.

Yarborough is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 20 and Swearegene’s sentencing is set for Dec. 18.