Delta County 47th Circuit Court Judge John Economopoulos delivered the sentencing Friday afternoon.

For count one — first-degree premeditated murder — Jackson, 35, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole with credit for 308 days served.

On count two — assault on a pregnant individual intentionally causing miscarriage/stillbirth — Jackson was sentenced to 750 months to 80 years to be served concurrently with count one. He was given credit for 308 days served.

As to count three — felony firearm — Jackson was sentenced to an additional two years, consecutive with counts one and two. Additionally, he was given credit for 720 days served for that count.

Tavaris Jackson, 35, was sentenced in the Delta County 47th Circuit Court on Friday. (Sophie Vogelmann | Daily Press)

Jackson was ordered to pay $334 in fines, fees and costs and was sentenced as a fourth habitual offender.

On Friday, the court heard from Corwin’s sister, Jersey Jewel Sexton, and aunt, Stephanie Westerberg.

“I am Harley’s sister. Harley was my best friend. Without her, navigating life is really hard,” Sexton said. “Tavaris has made it impossible for anyone I know to live a normal life.”

Westerberg told the judge about her father — Harley’s grandfather — who died five days after Corwin’s body was found.

“He was mostly in a vegetative state,” Westerberg said. “Unfortunately, he was cognizant enough to overhear the murder and stand straight up in bed and scream before collapsing to his bed. Those were the final words I will ever hear my father speak.”

Additionally, both women stated Corwin’s mother took her own life after her daughter was murdered.

“Another life decimated by Tavaris Jackson,” Westerberg told the judge. “In the short span of over three months, I had become a crypt keeper of urns of three generations in my home. I had lost so much and not by my own hand.”

Economopoulos addressed Jackson prior to delivering the sentence.

“You will be punished with the full weight of the law landing upon you like an asteroid,” Economopoulos said. “The way that you carried on with your day after murdering Harley Corwin in cold blood revealed an unspeakable lack of conscience.”

During the trial in March, the prosecution presented evidence of Jackson at stores in Escanaba with his children on the same day the murder occurred.

“You not only orphaned Harley Corwin’s children when you killed her, but you also orphaned your own five daughters by trading them for the hundreds of felons that you get to spend the rest of your life with, compliments of the Michigan Department of Corrections,” Economopoulos said. “That’s what you traded away when you decided to lead a trusting pregnant woman into the woods and become a murdering coward — murdering coward because you had to trick her to get her to follow you to her grave site.”

On March 12, a jury in the Delta County 47th Circuit Court found Jackson, of Escanaba, guilty of all counts as charged in the July 2023 killing of Corwin, who was pregnant at the time.

At trial, prosecutors from the Michigan Attorney General’s Office – Caitlin Kirby and LaDonna Logan – argued Jackson fatally shot his ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant, and left her body in a wooded area near O.B. Fuller Park in Ford River Township on July 3, 2023.

Corwin’s cause of death was ruled as gunshot wounds to the head, and the manner of death was homicide. The fetus’ cause of death was determined to be intrauterine fetal demise.

Several witnesses took the stand during the trial that lasted nearly two weeks in March, including, but not limited to, local law enforcement officers, forensic scientists, pathologists, former girlfriends of Jackson’s and even a domestic violence expert.

“With your track record, an argument that you’re a good candidate for reform is the equivalent of spitting at a hurricane,” Economopoulos said Friday. “Another tenet is the need to protect society. This community is owed the highest degree of protection from a man to whom human life means nothing.”

Jackson chose not to make any statements to the court at his time of sentencing.

Economopoulos further addressed Jackson, stating the following: “How your humanity can be revived from its coma is a mystery to me, but I do know one thing — Harley Corwin was a daughter. You have five daughters. And if there’s a speck of humanity or conscience left in you, you’ll silently pray each night in that prison that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who lies to her, that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who hatches a plan to kill her, that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who betrays her trust, that nobody’s daughter ever meets a man who points a gun to her head and pulls the trigger and that nobody’s daughter ever meets a Tavaris Jackson.”

Jackson was then led out of court by the Michigan Department of Corrections.

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Sophie Vogelmann can be reached at 906-786-2021 or svogelmann@dailypress.net.