Rosa Lagrone remained jailed from her 2020 arrest through the trial that convicted her of killing Darnell Manns.
NAPERVILLE, Ill. — What began with a wounded man, an attempted-murder charge and a $1.5 million bond in November 2020 has ended nearly six years later with Rosa Lagrone sentenced to 38 years in prison for first-degree murder.
The long path from shooting to sentence unfolded through several distinct stages. Darnell Manns, 27, was shot at Lagrone’s home in unincorporated Naperville on Nov. 6, 2020. He was initially hospitalized, leaving Lagrone accused of attempted murder and battery offenses. Manns died three days later, and prosecutors then moved the case into the category that would ultimately define it: first-degree murder. Lagrone remained jailed while the prosecution moved through years of pretrial proceedings, a four-day jury trial in February 2026 and, finally, an Aug. 5 sentencing hearing before Judge Daniel Guerin.
The first public reports focused on Manns’ critical injuries. DuPage County authorities said Lagrone fired a pistol during an argument at her home at about 2:15 p.m. The bullet struck Manns in the arm and torso and became lodged in his spine. When Lagrone appeared in court Nov. 8, Manns was still alive. She faced attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery involving the discharge of a firearm and a domestic-battery charge. Judge Paul Marchese set her bond at $1.5 million. At that point, officials were dealing with a shooting case whose final medical and legal consequences were not yet known.
That changed on Nov. 9. Manns died at the hospital from injuries authorities attributed to the shooting. Early news coverage reported that prosecutors expected the attempted-murder case to be upgraded after his death. On Nov. 19, the state formally obtained an indictment containing five additional first-degree murder charges. The progression is important because it separates what investigators knew immediately after the shooting from what was established later: the original case involved a living victim with a severe gunshot injury, while the later prosecution was based on Manns’ death and the state’s allegation that Lagrone was criminally responsible for it.
The prosecution’s account of why the couple was arguing also became a central part of the case. Authorities said Lagrone and Manns were in the home on Keswick Lane when they argued about Manns allegedly dating another woman. Local reporting said Manns was packing his belongings to leave. Prosecutors said the dispute escalated and Lagrone fired once. Investigators determined that the bullet went through Manns’ arm and lodged in his spine. The state ultimately presented that episode not as an accidental domestic injury but as the act supporting its murder prosecution, a position jurors accepted when they returned their verdict years later.
Another part of the state’s evidence concerned the minutes after the shot. Prosecutors said Lagrone accessed Manns’ Facebook page and began a live video chat with the woman he had allegedly been dating. Manns was visible behind her on the floor while seriously wounded, according to the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office. Later coverage said the recording appeared to show someone kicking Manns twice. The existence of the video chat gave investigators and prosecutors a digital record tied closely to the aftermath, although public summaries of the trial do not provide a complete transcript or a full description of everything jurors saw and heard from that evidence.
Lagrone’s custody status became another constant in the case. After her initial arrest, prosecutors sought in December 2020 to have her held without bail or, alternatively, to raise her bond to $3 million. That motion was denied. She nevertheless remained in the DuPage County Jail because she did not secure release under the original $1.5 million bond. By the time jurors were selected in 2026, she had therefore spent more than five years in custody while the murder case was pending. Public statements reviewed for this report do not provide a complete explanation for every period of delay between the indictment and trial.
The trial finally placed the state’s case before jurors in February 2026. It lasted four days under Guerin, the judge who would later impose sentence. After hearing the evidence and closing arguments, jurors deliberated for approximately two and a half hours. On Feb. 6, they found Lagrone guilty of first-degree murder. The verdict meant the state had carried its burden at trial and transformed Lagrone’s legal status from a defendant accused of homicide into a convicted murderer awaiting sentencing.
The immediate next step was not sentencing. Reports after the verdict said Lagrone was due back in court April 1 for a presentence report and post-trial motions. Such a stage gave the court time to address issues raised after the verdict and prepare for punishment. The sources reviewed do not detail the contents of those motions or the complete presentence record. What is clear is that the case remained before Guerin until August, when he imposed a prison term measured in decades rather than years already spent awaiting trial.
On Aug. 5, Guerin sentenced Lagrone to 38 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office said she is required to serve 100% of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole. The sentencing release did not publish a full transcript of the hearing, summarize all defense requests or provide a detailed account of any statement Lagrone may have made. It did include the prosecution’s response, with State’s Attorney Robert Berlin describing Manns’ killing as an example of the lasting harm caused by domestic violence.
Berlin also emphasized the limits of a prison sentence for Manns’ family. He said no number of years could bring Manns back or eliminate the grief of the people who loved him. Those remarks came after the central legal disputes had already been resolved by the jury’s verdict. By sentencing day, the question was no longer whether prosecutors had proved the killing. Instead, the hearing determined how long Lagrone would be imprisoned for the offense of which she had been convicted.
The case’s unusual digital component drew renewed attention after sentencing. Prosecutors had said Lagrone used Manns’ own Facebook account to contact the other woman while Manns remained wounded in the room. That conduct occurred after the shooting and did not replace the physical evidence about the gunshot itself, but it became one of the most widely reported facts surrounding the homicide. The state’s sentencing announcement repeated the video-chat allegation years after the original investigation, showing that prosecutors considered the sequence relevant to their account of what happened in the home.
The public record now spans the initial sheriff’s investigation, Manns’ hospitalization and death, the revised charges, Lagrone’s prolonged detention, her 2026 jury trial and the final sentencing order. Those records also show how the language surrounding the case evolved. Early reports described an alleged shooting and anticipated murder charge. After the February verdict, officials could state that a jury had convicted Lagrone. Following the August hearing, they could add the punishment: 38 years in state prison, with the sentence subject to the requirement announced by prosecutors that it be served in full before parole eligibility.
Lagrone’s conviction and sentence now form the operative judgment in the trial court. Publicly available reports reviewed for this story did not identify a later ruling overturning or changing either one. Manns’ death, which turned the original attempted-murder case into a homicide prosecution in November 2020, ultimately led to the first-degree murder verdict returned more than five years later.
Author note: Last updated September 20, 2026.