HOUSTON — The family of a former Houston-area high school basketball star who was gunned down while trying to protect his aunt is relieved to finally have justice.
On Friday, jurors sentenced Dionte Banks, the man who killed 24-year-old Greg Shead in August 2022, to 63 years in prison.
Shead, the cousin of University of Houston basketball star Jamal Shead, was shot outside a west Houston bowling alley on Bunker Hill Road after a large fight broke out in the parking lot. Family members said he was trying to help his aunt who was being attacked by a woman with Banks.
"I'm so sorry that somebody that didn't even know him took his life because he had the rest of his life ahead of him," Shead's sobbing mother, Madisha Bush, told us.
After Banks was sentenced, Shead's family gathered to pray outside the courtroom.
"Thank you, Lord, thank you for answering our prayers," she said.
It's been a long and painful journey for the family.
"We're glad we got to this point so we can move forward now, it's hard to really grieve when you have this weighing on you if the person is going to be held accountable," Bush said. "And now that he is, we can move forward and start healing."
Banks apologized to the victim's family but they didn't feel he was sincere.
Shead was a star athlete at Atascocita High School and he left behind two young daughters.
"He was a wonderful person," his mother said.
Relatives said he was fun to be around and loved by all who knew him.
"Greg was like an angel on earth, when he came around all your problems went away," best friend Wallace Allen told us.
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The family said Greg's legacy will continue through them and the other lives he touched.
"Even when he wasn't here, we still got his back no matter what, I got you son," his father, Gregory Shead Sr., said as he choked back tears.