Man flies from Chicago to Fort Myers for $10,000 murder contract

FORT MYERS, Florida – On Monday, a judge sentenced 27-year-old Latrel Jackson, aka “Kobe,” to life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and murder for hire.

His co-defendant, 25-year-old Marvin Harris Jr., alias “Mesh,” was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this year.

According to court documents, in 2019, Harris Jr. hired Jackson and another co-conspirator (now deceased) for $10,000 to travel from Chicago to Fort Myers to kill Keion Upshaw.

The case says the motive was retaliation after a drug dealer Harris Jr. was associated with committed theft, believing the Fort Myers gang then known as “Bucktown” was responsible.

According to the documents, on November 2, 2019, Jackson and another person involved went to a meeting point in Bucktown in Fort Myers and killed Keion Upshaw (identified by prosecutors as KU) by shooting him in the head.

The two returned to Chicago the next day.

Weeks later, a search and forensic tests confirmed that bullet casings recovered from the crime scene and the car used during the murder, as well as a bullet recovered from the victim's body, matched firearms found in Jackson's Chicago home.