ORLANDO COLBERT-McGLON, then 16, walked up to a silver sedan at a Palm Bay park, called to one of the teenagers inside, then shot that young man through the face and neck.

The 17-year-old victim was lucky to survive that December 2022 shooting. Now it is Colbert-McGlon who will lose the prime of his life – to prison.

Circuit Judge Kelly Jo McKibben sentenced Colbert-McGlon, now 19, to the mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison for attempted first-degree murder, to be followed by five years of probation.  At a hearing Dec. 12,  she also sentenced Colbert-McGlon to 25 years for aggravated battery, 15 years for shooting into an occupied vehicle, and one year for possession of a firearm by a minor. All the sentences will run concurrently with credit given to Colbert-McGlon for the three years he spent in the Brevard County Jail awaiting trial.

Prosecutors Nader Hatoum and Francis DeMuro convicted Colbert-McGlon at trial in September.

“It was just senseless,” DeMuro said of the shooting. A teenager with a gun decided to commit a violent adult crime and ultimately destroyed his own life, he said.

Colbert-McGlon never disclosed his motive for shooting the other teen at Nungesser Park, but it most likely involved drugs, prosecutors said.  Witnesses told Palm Bay Police detectives that someone Colbert-McGlon knew owed the victim money for marijuana, didn’t want to pay, and hired Colbert-McGlon to kill the victim and erase the debt. Colbert-McGlon arranged a meeting at the park over Snapchat, ostensibly to sell the victim vapes.  He fired four shots into the car, striking the victim three times.

The wounded young man’s friends dropped him off at a nearby Palm Bay fire station then sped off in the car, which was covered with blood inside. The victim endured multiple emergency and reconstructive surgeries. He has since relocated to the Northeast.

Although he testified at trial, the victim did not travel to Colbert-McGlon’s sentencing in Viera, apparently having decided to move on in life, DeMuro said.