***WARNING: The following story contains graphic content not suitable for all readers***

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – A 23-year-old Fort Wayne man convicted of murder in the shooting death and subsequent throat slashing of his 22-year-old friend was sentenced to 80 years in prison on Friday.

Weston Blakely asked Jonathan Christopher Jackson to come to his apartment to hangout one evening in November 2021.

Later that night, Fort Wayne police were called to the blood-smeared apartment where they found Jackson shot in the head, multiple times in the body and with his throat slashed.

Blakely told detectives Jackson began attacking him in the living room, according to court documents. He struggled to get to his bedroom, retrieved his gun and then warned Jackson not to come near him. Blakely said in court documents that Jackson made a move toward him so he unloaded every round in the gun.

When he tried to leave the bedroom to get his cell phone to call police, Blakely tripped over Jackson, he said in court documents. He thought Jackson was trying to get up and come after him again, so Blakely took a knife and cut Jackson’s throat.

The entry and exit wounds left on Jackson from the gunshots painted a different story, a Fort Wayne police detective wrote in court documents. Rather than consistent with a person standing in front of a shooter, most of them matched that of someone laying before someone with a gun.

Wounds on Blakely’s head did not come from someone attacking him from behind, according to the court documents. Instead, detectives believe they likely came from Blakely being on top of Jackson, and Jackson was likely using a knife to defend himself from a much taller and heavier Blakely.

Detectives believe that there was a fight between Blakely and Jackson that night.

After the fight, Blakely got his gun and shot Jackson in the head, according to court documents. He then unloaded the rest of the rounds into Jackson’s body as he lay on the ground near the bedroom door.

He sliced Jackson’s throat after he was dead – not in an attempt to keep him from getting up again.

A jury found the police story more plausible than Blakely’s one of self-defense and found him guilty of murder this past March.

Friday, an Allen Superior Court judge gave Blakely 60 years on the murder count and another 20 years for using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

He was also ordered to pay more than $25,000 in restitution to Jackson’s family.