Tanner Staggs was remembered as a worker, baseball player and animal lover after his fatal shooting.
DAYTON, Ohio — Tanner Staggs’ family spent what would have been his 23rd birthday in a courtroom, where a judge sentenced Travis Jackson to 21 years to life for killing the young landscaper during a dispute over debris on a car.
The June 10 hearing linked two dates that now define the case: the birthday Staggs did not live to celebrate and the day his convicted killer learned how long he must remain in prison. Staggs was 22 when Jackson shot him during a Sept. 18, 2025, landscaping assignment on Indiana Avenue. A jury convicted Jackson in May after hearing testimony about the brief confrontation, the crew’s offer to clean the vehicle and the defense claim that Staggs attacked first.
Before his name appeared in police reports and court records, Staggs was known through work, sports, music and family. A fundraising page created after his death described him as a committed baseball player who loved animals. It said he grew up appreciating hair metal and 1990s rap, interests he shared with his father. The page collected more than $30,000 for funeral costs as word of the shooting spread through the Eaton and Dayton areas. Dunham’s Lawn Care LLC, the company whose crew Staggs had joined, said his death left an “unimaginable void” for the people who loved him, his colleagues and the wider landscaping community.
Staggs had gone to Indiana Avenue as part of an ordinary residential work crew. The employees were cutting and clearing vegetation near a home when clippings and dirt reached a vehicle parked on the street. Investigators said Jackson came outside and confronted the workers about the mess. Crew members told him they would use a blower to remove the material before leaving. That exchange could have ended with the equipment already at the job. Instead, prosecutors said, Jackson continued the argument, pulled a 9 mm handgun and fired several shots. Two struck Staggs. A disagreement over material that could be blown from a car had become a fatal emergency.
Dayton police officers arrived at about 11:15 a.m. and found Staggs wounded near the sidewalk. Paramedics took him to Miami Valley Hospital, where he died. The crew’s work stopped, and Indiana Avenue became a secured scene. Detectives separated witnesses, documented the area and began comparing accounts. Jackson acknowledged firing the gun. That admission narrowed the investigation but did not end it, because he claimed he acted after being struck. The question of whether Staggs attacked Jackson became the central dispute that followed the case from the 911 call through the murder trial eight months later.
Crew members gave investigators an account that placed Jackson, not Staggs, at the center of the escalation. Witnesses said they saw the argument and the gunfire but did not see Staggs hit Jackson. Their statements supported the prosecution’s view that the workers had offered a practical response to the complaint and posed no threat requiring deadly force. Jackson offered another story. He said Staggs struck him without warning and that he believed another attack was coming. His attorney later suggested Staggs might have used brass knuckles. The reported testimony did not establish that crew members saw such a weapon or an assault.
The immediate public response focused on the contrast between the cause of the argument and its outcome. Staggs had been earning a living when he was shot. The debris at issue was a common byproduct of the job, and workers said they were prepared to remove it. For his relatives, however, the case could not be reduced to the unusual reason the dispute began. It was the loss of a son and loved one whose future ended at 22. Messages accompanying the funeral fundraiser stressed how widely he would be missed and how suddenly a normal workday had become the final day of his life.
Jackson was arrested and initially faced charges that included murder, felonious assault and discharging a firearm on or near prohibited premises. The case moved through Montgomery County Common Pleas Court as prosecutors gathered testimony and prepared the physical evidence. By the time the trial began May 18, 2026, the two sides agreed on basic facts such as who fired and who died. They disagreed over the meaning of the confrontation. Prosecutors presented Staggs as a worker offering to correct a minor problem. The defense presented Jackson as a man who made a reasonable request and then fired only after he was attacked.
Jurors visited Indiana Avenue before hearing the full courtroom presentation. The scene visit gave them a direct view of the neighborhood where Staggs had worked, the nearby homes and the street where Jackson’s vehicle was parked. Opening statements then established the divide they would be asked to resolve. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jacob Redden said the case began with grass clippings on a car. Defense attorney Anthony VanNoy told the panel that the prosecution had mischaracterized Jackson and that the shooting followed a physical assault. The contrast placed Staggs’ actions during the last seconds before the gunfire under intense scrutiny.
Police officers and crew members testified for the state. Jackson took the stand for the defense. Jurors also heard the 911 call he made after the shooting. “I was in fear of my life and from the attack and being struck,” Jackson said in the recording. The defense said he was woozy and believed Staggs would continue hitting him. Prosecutors challenged that explanation with testimony from the workers who said they never saw Staggs strike Jackson. They argued that the gunfire followed anger over the condition of the car, not an imminent threat to Jackson’s life.
The jury began deliberating May 21 after closing arguments and continued the following morning. After about seven hours of consideration, the panel returned guilty verdicts on every charge. Jackson was convicted of two murder counts, two forms of felonious assault, discharging a firearm on or near prohibited premises and involuntary manslaughter. He put his hand to his face as the findings were announced. Staggs’ relatives said the verdict brought relief because the trial had ended. They could move beyond waiting for a decision, although the verdict could not restore the person whose life had been examined through testimony and exhibits.
The court scheduled sentencing for June 10 at 11 a.m. That date would have been Staggs’ birthday. At the hearing, the judge imposed 21 years to life. The sentence means Jackson must serve the minimum period before he can seek release through the parole process. Even then, release is not promised. State authorities may decide that he should remain imprisoned for additional years or for life. The court’s final calculation accounted for convictions that overlapped because they arose from the same conduct. The sentence therefore did not simply add the maximum punishment for every count.
The birthday sentencing added an emotional fact to a case already filled with sharp contrasts. Staggs was remembered for interests associated with youth and plans still unfolding. Jackson entered a sentence that will carry him into later adulthood before parole is possible. The conflict began with temporary debris on a vehicle. Its effects became permanent for the Staggs family, the landscaping crew and Jackson’s own future. Prosecutors described the killing as the use of a firearm to settle a minor dispute, a conclusion the verdict supported by rejecting the self-defense claim.
The case also left crew members as witnesses to the killing of a colleague during their shared workday. They were required to recount the argument, the offer to clean the car and the shots before detectives and later before jurors. Their memories became evidence in a proceeding that lasted far longer than the confrontation itself. The company’s statement placed their loss alongside that of Staggs’ relatives. Landscaping crews often move from property to property with mowers, trimmers and blowers. This crew left Indiana Avenue without a 22-year-old co-worker who had arrived expecting to complete another job.
For now, Jackson is serving his 21-years-to-life term, while Staggs’ family has passed the verdict and sentencing milestones that occupied the months after his death. Any appeal would address claimed legal errors in the prosecution or trial, but the current judgment records Jackson as guilty of murder.
Author note: Last updated July 12, 2026.