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Milwaukee beating death; Marvin Millner gets 19 years prison
A Milwaukee County judge sentenced Marvin Millner to 19 years in prison in connection with the beating death of a man on Milwaukee's south side in October 2022.
MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee County judge sentenced Marvin Millner on Friday, May 19 to 19 years in prison plus an addition eight years and ten months in extended supervision in connection with the beating death of a man on Milwaukee's south side in October 2022.
Millner pleaded guilty in March 2023 to two of the charges against him – felony murder and taking a vehicle without consent/use of force. The robbery charge was dismissed and read into the court record for the purposes of sentencing.
Millner was charged along with 47-year-old Terry Johnson in this case.
Case details
According to the criminal complaint, police responded to a battery complaint near S. 5th Place and Chase Avenue around 11:40 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 25. When officers arrived they found a man, later identified as Rodney Surprise, lying on the pavement unconscious. He was taken to the hospital where he died from injuries.
Rodney Surprise
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy -- and found Surprise's cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries.
Police recovered a video from the gas station. The complaint says the video was of "good clarity" and shows three men assaulting the victim. Johnson and Millner were identified in the video. The third man remains unidentified.
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The complaint says the video shows Surprise arrive in a car and park outside the gas station. Millner and the third man confront Surprise after he exits his car. "The victim is outside the store for several minutes; at one point he tried to get back into his car, but Millner and assailant 3 lean against the door, preventing him from doing so. Johnson, who had entered the store minutes earlier, exits the store. The victim enters the store shortly after Johnson exits it," the complaint says.
Surprise was in the store for about 20 minutes. The complaint says "Johnson and assailant 3 go inside the store. Johnson grabs the victim by the back of the sweatshirt collar while assailant 3 punches the victim, who falls down." Surprise was eventually dragged outside where "Millner and assailant 3 go through the victim's pockets. Assailant 3 throws a few more punches at the victim, then disengages and joins Johnson -- and Johnson and assailant 3 walked off together, leaving the camera view."
According to the complaint, while Surprise is lying on the pavement, badly beaten, Millner got into Surprise's car. The victim "crawls and struggles to pick himself up and get to his car. He opens the car door and grabs Millner. Millner partially rises out of the seat and hurls the victim to the pavement." Surprise fell backward and went limp -- and Millner then drove away in the victim's car, the complaint says.
A store clerk told police "he heard one of the three assailants yelling at the victim, ordering the victim to pay for $40 worth of items that the assailants wanted the victim to buy for them."
Police later interviewed Johnson and Millner. Johnson told police he knew the other two assailants by street names. "He said those two thought the victim owed them money because earlier another person had tried to take things from the victim, and they had helped the victim out of that situation. He admitted dragging the victim out by the back of the hoodie," the complaint says.
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Millner told police "he knew the other two assailants by street names. He said that while he was waiting outside the store, he knew the other two were going to go inside to pull out the victim. He admitted grabbing the victim's keys out of the victim's hand and driving off in his car. He said he was high on crack cocaine when all this happened," the complaint says.