Family issues warning after man skips sentencing in teen's 2022 shooting death

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) - A Houston man was a no-show in court this week when he was supposed to appear for sentencing in an 18-year-old girl's 2022 shooting death.

Zakorian Batiste was 17 years old when police say he was playing with a loaded gun at a south Harris County apartment and shot Nariah Champion.

Champion, whose family said she hoped to practice law, was just months away from graduating high school at the time.

"It's like a hurt that - it never left. It's always there. It's like an open wound," Nariah's mother Keisha Shields said.

Batiste pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge in May and was supposed to be sentenced Wednesday.

He was out of jail on bond and still wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet Aug. 4 when police say he robbed a woman on a PlayStation during a Facebook Marketplace sale.

"I was happy too because I was like, 'Now, he's showing his character.' I knew all along that that was in him," Shields said.

Batiste was charged with robbery Aug. 23, but it's unclear why he wasn't arrested then since he was still wearing the bracelet.

Sometime on Aug. 26, court documents say his bracelet stopped working.

His bond was revoked, and a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he never turned himself in and didn't appear at Wednesday's scheduled sentencing hearing in the manslaughter case.

"That's something that you chose to do, so you need to be a man and correct it," Nariah's father Jonathan Champion said.

"He's a disaster waiting to happen. That's what he is. He's a disaster waiting to happen and strike again," Shields said.

He's already dealt Nariah's parents the greatest blow of all.

"I'll never see what she'll be in life, and she always said, 'Daddy, I'm going to be the one,'" Champion said.