Tavaris Jackson, 35, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole after being found guilty in Delta County of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend in July 2023. (Sophie Vogelmann/ Daily Press photo)

ESCANABA — Tavaris Jackson was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury earlier this year found him guilty in the July 2023 slaying of his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Delta County 47th Circuit Court Judge John Economopoulos ruled the 35-year-old Jackson should never be free again for first-degree premeditated murder in the death of Harley Corwin, 22.

On assault on a pregnant individual intentionally causing miscarriage/stillbirth, Jackson received 750 months to 80 years, with both sentences to be served concurrently and credit for 308 days.

On count three, felony firearm, the judge gave Jackson an additional two years, consecutive with counts one and two, and credit for 720 days served.

On Friday, the court heard from Corwin’s sister, Jersey Jewel Sexton, and aunt Stephanie Westerberg.

“Harley was my best friend. Without her, navigating life is really hard,” Sexton said. “Tavaris has made it impossible for anyone I know to live a normal life.”

Westerberg told the judge about her father — Harley’s grandfather — who died five days after Corwin’s body was found.

“He was mostly in a vegetative state,” Westerberg said. “Unfortunately, he was cognizant enough to overhear the murder and stand straight up in bed and scream before collapsing to his bed. Those were the final words I will ever hear my father speak.”

Additionally, both women said Corwin’s mother took her own life after her daughter was murdered.

“Another life decimated by Tavaris Jackson,” Westerberg told the judge. “In the short span of over three months, I had become a crypt keeper of urns of three generations in my home. I had lost so much and not by my own hand.”

Economopoulos addressed Jackson prior to delivering the sentence.

“You will be punished with the full weight of the law landing upon you like an asteroid,” Economopoulos said. “The way that you carried on with your day after murdering Harley Corwin in cold blood revealed an unspeakable lack of conscience.”

During the trial in March, the prosecution presented evidence of Jackson at stores in Escanaba with his children on the same day the murder occurred.

“You not only orphaned Harley Corwin’s children when you killed her, but you also orphaned your own five daughters by trading them for the hundreds of felons that you get to spend the rest of your life with, compliments of the Michigan Department of Corrections,” Economopoulos said. “That’s what you traded away when you decided to lead a trusting pregnant woman into the woods and become a murdering coward — murdering coward because you had to trick her to get her to follow you to her grave site.”

A jury in the Delta County 47th Circuit Court found Jackson, of Escanaba, guilty March 12 on all counts in the death of Corwin, who was pregnant at the time she was killed July 3, 2023.

At trial, prosecutors from the Michigan Attorney General’s Office – Caitlin Kirby and LaDonna Logan – argued Jackson fatally shot his ex-girlfriend and left her body in a wooded area near O.B. Fuller Park in Ford River Township on July 3, 2023.

Corwin’s cause of death was ruled as gunshot wounds to the head, and the manner of death was homicide. The fetus’ cause of death was determined to be intrauterine fetal demise.

“With your track record, an argument that you’re a good candidate for reform is the equivalent of spitting at a hurricane,” Economopoulos said Friday. “Another tenet is the need to protect society. This community is owed the highest degree of protection from a man to whom human life means nothing.”

Jackson chose not to make any statements at his sentencing.

Economopoulos further addressed Jackson, stating: “How your humanity can be revived from its coma is a mystery to me, but I do know one thing — Harley Corwin was a daughter. You have five daughters. And if there’s a speck of humanity or conscience left in you, you’ll silently pray each night in that prison that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who lies to her, that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who hatches a plan to kill her, that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who betrays her trust, that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who points a gun to her head and pulls the trigger and that nobody’s daughter ever meets a Tavaris Jackson.”

Jackson was then led out of court by the Michigan Department of Corrections.

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Sophie Vogelmann can be reached at 906-786-2021 or svogelmann@dailypress.net.