Jonathan Price: Marine Coldly Slain In Robbery, Wife Shot — Now Cops Say They Got The Killers


Jonathan Price, a United States Marine, and his wife, Megan, were out celebrating her 24th birthday on June 21 of last year, when two men came out of nowhere and coldly, ruthlessly, shattered the young couple’s whole world. Now, almost exactly a year later, the process of delivering justice for the slaying of the 26-year-old Marine is finally underway.

Police say they’ve got the men who did it, and on Tuesday, Quincinio Canada, 23, and Dawan Mulazim, 31, both also of Lexington, Kentucky, were indicted by a grand jury for the heartbreaking and shocking murder.

Jonathan and Megan had just stepped outside of Austin City Saloon in Lexington that night and were waiting as the rest of the birthday party, including the evening’s designated driver, Bethany Burton, were still inside. With the bar’s doors shut and music blaring, the rest of the revelers had no idea what was taking place in the parking lot.

According to Megan’s version of the story, which she told to the Kentucky Forward online news outlet, she and Jonathan — who had been married less than a year, but had known each other since high school — were waiting by Burton’s car when she had a strange premonition, “a gut feeling that we just need to get out of here.”

When she looked up, a man with a gun demanded money. She was about to give him $60 from her purse — but instead, he shot her in the leg, shattering her femur bone.

Jonathan tried to protect her, fighting with a second man. But the second assailant was able to throw the Marine to the ground and as he lay face down, Megan recounted, the man who had already shot her aimed his gun at Jonathan’s back and pulled the trigger, killing him in cold blood.

What Megan did not know was those two men — who police and prosecutors now say were Canada and Mulazim — were in the midst of a terrifying crime spree, committing at least four robberies and one more shooting over the early weeks of what was a violent summer in Lexington last year.

The same weekend that Jonathan Price was slain, four others were also shot, one fatally, in the city. In that one-month period, about 12 people were shot and four killed, including Jonathan, in Lexington.

Canada and Mulazim were nabbed after a car chase that ended in New Albany, Indiana, last July 27, and have been incarcerated ever since.

From Mulazim’s Facebook page, which has not been updated since April of 2014, before the crime spree that included the murder of Jonathan Price began, he appears to be a fan of University of Kentucky basketball who is married with a little daughter.

A woman identified as his wife, Shalonda Smith, was indicted last September, accused of concealing evidence related to the crimes. According to his Facebook page, Mulazim was hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat in January of 2014 and his wife slept in the hospital and “she ain’t left my side.”

On Canada’s Facebook page, he posted a picture of a small boy who is apparently himself as a child.

“They did not take my happy. You can’t take my happy,” Megan Price said in her interview with the Forward.

“I’m grateful for the time I got with Jonathan. I’m a better person for having known him. And if that means I only got him for the time I got him, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Canada will be arraigned on July 10 in the killing of U.S. Marine Jonathan Price. An arraignment date for Mulazim has not been announced.

[Images: Police Handouts, WLEX TV]

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