In late September, a jury of his peers in Escambia County convicted Christian Ketchup, 27, of a lone count of second-degree murder with a firearm.
On Wednesday, First Judicial Circuit Judge Amy Brodersen sentenced the defendant to life in prison without parole for the murder of Tierra Binion, a 25-year-old mother of twins. The court also ordered Ketchup to pay $7,500 into a victim compensation trust fund.
The defendant’s factual responsibility for the woman’s death was never in doubt; he unsuccessfully claimed self-defense after a scuffle that resulted in Binion being shot ten times in the back.
“My opinion is that life is justice,” the victim’s sister told The Pensacola News Journal after the sentence hearing. “I expect nothing less.”
On August 23, 2023, a brawl broke out inside the Mugs & Jugs on Scenic Highway in Pensacola, when Binion and another lady confronted a bar patron for “talking about their bodies” and harassing them. The brawl eventually spilled out into the parking lot of the sports bar and “package” store, where customers can drink on-site or buy booze via a drive-thru.
The fight began between Binion and Ketchup’s girlfriend, Rachel DeRise, 25. The man eventually intervened.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office described DeRise and Binion as “mutually combatant”. Ketchup eventually launched himself at Binion, punching and knocking her down, according to video surveillance footage shown during Ketchup’s trial.
DeRise then used the chance to repeatedly hit the victim while she was down and unconscious. DeRise pleaded guilty to a single count of misdemeanor violence for the attack in September of 2024. The girlfriend was sentenced to 60 days in county jail, followed by one year on probation.
The man, however, took a different path.
Ketchup quickly pulled out his firearm and pressed the trigger when the victim’s back was turned. Then he did it nine more times.
Furthermore, an Uber driver who was dropping off a customer near the bar told deputies that he witnessed Ketchup strike Binion before pulling out his revolver and “unloading it” into the victim’s back.
“This victim was punched in the face by a large man, and she was jumped on by his girlfriend, but somehow the defendant wants this court to believe, like some superhero, (Binion) rises up and starts attacking his girlfriend and him again, and then she’s reaching for a gun that we know she doesn’t have,” Chief Assistant State Attorney Bridgette Myers Jensen said during the murder trial, according to a courtroom report by the News Journal.
“This defendant essentially interjected himself into a fight that he had absolutely nothing to do with,” says Jensen. “And then he wants to be the big man on campus.”
According to court documents obtained by Pensacola-based ABC station WEAR, investigators discovered at least 20 shot casings near Binion’s body, as well as five more in another section of the parking lot.
Ketchup then contacted 911, identifying himself as the shooter.
“I f-ed up,” the now-convicted man told the deputies who arrived at the tavern. “I am not an f-ing killer. I do not do that. “That is not me.”
Investigators seized a Springfield Armory handgun in the vicinity; in the meantime, a witness discovered a SIG Sauer P365 semiautomatic weapon in the parking lot and gave it to a bartender.
And, it appears, the frenzied scuffle that ultimately became fatal had nothing to do with Ketchup at all.
A female witness stated in a sworn statement that she and Binion were at the bar, minding their own business, when a “unknown black male wearing a black shirt and grey shorts approached” them and began “talking about their bodies.” ” The witness also “stated they told him to stop and keep walking, but he kept harassing them,” according to the affidavit.
Ketchup’s attorney, Thomas F. McGuire III, previously told Law&Crime that his client was not the one who was “being lewd with the girls” before to the shooting. Indeed, documentation show Ketchup wearing a blue shirt and a cap on the night in question.
Later, the woman and her companions allegedly began “beating on” the accused “lewd” male, but DeRise got caught up in the chaos and attacked, according to McGuire.
The defense, for its turn, claimed Ketchup assumed Binion was armed that night because she had previously used the phrase “my gun” and the bar’s patrons were frequently alleged to be armed.
The state said that reasoning did not justify what occurred.
“It was not reasonable for him to lose his cool when his drunken girlfriend got knocked down being too close to a fight,” Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Trey Myers told jurors during closing arguments. “It was not reasonable for him to punch a 5-foot, 5-inch female in the face twice, all because of a cat fight.”
