Jury Determines Fishburne Should Face Death for Murder of Aisha Levy

State Attorney Melissa Nelson announces that a jury by a 10-2 decision determined Markas Fishburne should be sentenced to death for the First-Degree Murder and Kidnapping of 25-year-old Aisha Levy. The penalty phase of Fishburne’s trial began Feb. 9. 2024, after Fishburne pleaded guilty to the Honorable Tatiana Salvador to the charges Feb. 8, 2024. A Spencer Hearing is tentatively scheduled March 28, 2024.

On Dec. 20, 2019, officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded to an apartment on Princeton Square Boulevard after Levy’s boyfriend returned home from work to find blood all over the apartment. He also found a note that said Levy and Fishburne were dead and he was next. Fishburne had been temporarily staying with the couple. Levy’s boyfriend noticed an odor of bleach in the apartment and his firearm was missing. After a search warrant was obtained, detectives found Levy’s body wrapped and concealed in a plastic storage bin in a closet. Officers quickly located Fishburne as he was about to board a Greyhound bus to Indiana. Fishburne was taken into custody, and, post-Miranda, he admitted to stabbing, strangling, and hitting Levy in the head with a hammer when Levy was getting out of the shower. A forensic investigation of Fishburne’s phone revealed a video taken of Levy with her hands bound before the murder. After Fishburne killed Levy, he hid her body in the closet and stole the firearm. While incarcerated awaiting trial in June 2022, Fishburne got into an altercation with another inmate and stabbed him using a handmade tool featuring a razorblade. The inmate was severely injured, and Fishburne was arrested and convicted for Aggravated Battery in a Detention Facility.

The case was investigated by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and was prosecuted by Assistant State Attorneys Joe Licandro, Alan Mizrahi, and Jalisa Curtis.