Shavon Randle’s mother testifies about the last time she saw her 13-year-old daughter alive

The last conversation Shaquana Persley had with her teenage daughter was through FaceTime the morning the 13-year-old was abducted and later killed.

“She was just calling, FaceTiming everybody,” Persley told a jury Thursday afternoon. She “wanted to see everybody and play on the phone.”

Persley never saw her daughter, Shavon Randle, alive again.

Persley was the final witness Thursday before prosecutors rested their case against Desmond Jones, one of the four men they say is responsible for Shavon’s death.

Jones’ attorneys also rested their case Thursday, without calling Jones or any other witnesses to testify.

Jurors will hear closing arguments Friday before they begin deliberating. Jones faces up to life in prison if convicted of engaging in organized criminal activity.

Prosecutors say Jones, 24, worked with four other men — Darius Fields, Devontae Owens, Michael Titus and Laquon Wilkerson — to kidnap Shavon in retaliation for stolen marijuana in 2017. Shavon had nothing to do with the drugs.

Prosecutors say Jones was a lookout when Shavon was taken from her home in Lancaster in June 2017.

The 13-year-old was found shot to death days later in an abandoned drug house after Jones led authorities to her body.

Titus was also killed, and his body was found in the drug house.

Prosecutors said the quarter-million dollars worth of drugs belonged to Fields and was stolen by Kendall Perkins, who was dating Shavon’s cousin. The group initially intended to kidnap Shavon’s cousin but abducted the teenager instead, prosecutors said.

On Thursday, Persley testified briefly at the trial about her daughter, whose 13th birthday was only six days before she was abducted. The family had planned to celebrate that upcoming weekend.

But hours after she’d talked to her daughter on FaceTime, Persley said, a family member called to tell her that Shavon was missing.

“At any point after the call were you ever able to see your daughter alive again?” lead prosecutor Jennifer Falk asked Persley.

“No,” Persley replied.

She started to cry later as she left the courtroom.

On Thursday, jurors also heard from a Lancaster police detective who interviewed Jones after he led authorities to the bodies. Like another official who testified, Jason Rohack said Jones wasn’t forthcoming in interviews.

“He would open up a little bit about certain things that happened, and it didn’t make sense,” Rohack said. “So we’d have to clarify.”

Jones ultimately admitted to being present for the kidnapping, Rohack said. Jones told investigators Titus and Wilkerson abducted Shavon while he watched from Owens’ car. He also told authorities that Titus shot Shavon, angering Wilkerson, who then shot Titus.

Jones’ attorneys have suggested while questioning witnesses that he wasn’t as involved in the crime as the other men. He didn’t physically abduct the girl or shoot her, they said.

Trials for Owens and Wilkerson are set for later this year, court records show. Fields, who is already serving a federal sentence for gun charges, does not have a trial date scheduled for his state charges.