An Illinois woman sobbed for the almost nine minutes Wednesday she took to tell a judge her thoughts about killing a woman she claimed was her dear friend.
“I never intended for any of this to happen. She was my best friend. I know I took a light out of this world that I won’t be able to bring back,” Arieana Colbert told Judge Randy Rosenbaum.
“I want justice for Acarrie because she did not deserve this,” said Colbert. “I pray that her family can find it in their hearts not to hate me.”
The judge said Colbert’s stirring allocution, her horrible childhood being raised by the state of Illinois, her young age, her lack of criminal record and her remorse combined to net her a sentence of 47 years in prison for the murder of 19-year-old Acarrie Ingram-Triner just two more than the minimum.
She has to serve 100 percent of the sentence and was given credit for the 471 days she’s been in jail.
A jury convicted Colbert in January of the first-degree murder of Ingram-Triner for fatally shooting her Oct. 20, 2021, in an outside courtyard at the former Gramercy Park Apartments on Kenwood Road in Champaign.
Testimony at trial was that the women were arguing over the return of a Wi-Fi box that Ingram-Triner had sold to Colbert’s boyfriend, Quincy Hayes, for $15.
Colbert and Hayes both testified that after telling their friend they had no money to loan her to buy cannabis, nor any cannabis to give her on credit, she showed up at their apartment wanting the box back, apparently hoping to sell it to someone else for quick cash.
They took their argument outside where the women shouted, shoved and swung at each other as Hayes tried to separate them.
Colbert said her friend was threatening to go get her brothers and return to continue the mayhem, and that alarmed her. As Ingram-Triner walked away, Colbert pulled a gun from her waistband and fired, hitting the victim in the lower neck and perforating a major artery that caused her to bleed to death within seconds.
In a post-trial motion seeking a new trial, Rosenbaum rejected any claim that he erred by not allowing the jury to consider lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter or second-degree murder that include elements of reckless behavior or provocation.
“The ‘right thing’ to do would have been to give the jury (those options) but my job is to follow the law,” said Rosenbaum, calling that decision one of the toughest he’s made on the bench. “I don’t think legally there was sufficient evidence to support either of them.”
Assistant State’s Attorney Kristin Alferink argued for a sentence of 59 years — 27 for the murder plus 32 for the use of the gun.
The sentence for murder is between 20 and 60 years in prison, but when a gun is used, there is an automatic “enhancement” of another 25 years to life on top of the murder sentence.
Alferink presented Rosenbaum with aggravating testimony from three police officers who had dealt with Colbert on occasions in 2017, 2020 and 2021, during which she acted rashly.
In the July 2021 incident, Champaign County Deputy Alex James said Colbert inserted herself into an argument at an east Urbana home between her sister and her sister’s boyfriend by producing a gun and firing it three times in their direction. No one was injured, and Colbert denied having done so, James testified.
In December 2020, Champaign police Detective Lauren Hill said Colbert broke a window at the Champaign home of an ex-boyfriend in a jealous rage and also broke the windows on a car in his driveway.
In October 2014, when she was 13, Detective Art Miller said he and another officer had to return Colbert to her foster home after a stay at the Pavilion. She had to be forcibly placed in a squad car and, not long after being shoved through the door of her placement home, was fighting in the backyard with her foster mother, Miller said, resulting in her arrest.
Alferink acknowledged the difficult upbringing Colbert had by the Department of Children and Family Services but said Colbert could not use that as an excuse to kill her friend.
She suggested that Colbert squandered her opportunity to better herself by dropping out of the University of Illinois after just a year, having won scholarships to attend there despite the difficulties of her childhood.
“She has anger issues,” the prosecutor said.
Assistant Public Defender Janie Miller-Jones reminded Rosenbaum that Colbert was only 20 years old at the time of the shooting and had plans to become a nurse.
She said Colbert was able to hold jobs and go to school while dealing with diagnoses of manic bipolar disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Miller-Jones said Colbert abused alcohol and cannabis from a young age as a coping mechanism in response to being bounced from one unstable living situation to another after being removed from an abusive and neglectful home.
“Forty-five years is appropriate,” Miller-Jones said, recommending the minimum sentence.
An insightful Colbert said she has tried many times to work on her anger management in hopes of fixing her thinking and her behavior.
“I was brought into a world that wasn’t ready for me. There was not a lot of resources or love,” she said.
Colbert sobbed as she spoke, as did several people in the gallery there in support of her and Ingram-Triner.
“It’s an understatement to say Miss Colbert has anger control problems,” said the judge, lamenting the pain caused to the victim’s family by what he called a “senseless crime.”
“It’s a tragedy all around.”
Ingram-Triner’s father searched for the right words when asked his thoughts.
“We cannot believe the effect,” Anthony Triner said, noting two families whose lives have been destroyed by Colbert’s actions. “It’s just heart-breaking.”
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