![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/pendergrass-and-thomas.jpg\")
article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
Jalen Pendergrass. Inset: London Thomas <\/p>\n
FOX 2 – The boyfriend charged in the murder of Inkster teen London Thomas pleaded guilty on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backstory:<\/p>\n
Jalen Pendergrass pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and as part of his agreement, additional charges of tampering with evidence, felony murder and unlawful imprisonment were dismissed.<\/p>\n
His sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. July 31.<\/p>\n
Thomas, 17, was last seen on April 5, 2025, when her sister dropped her off at her 23-year-old boyfriend’s Inkster home<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n On April 26, 2025, her body was found in Southfield.<\/p>\n Pendergrass was initially considered a person of interest in 17-year-old Thomas’ disappearance and murder but was never charged, while his mom previously faced charges that were dropped<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Thomas’ body was discovered, the boyfriend’s mother, Pendergrass, 48, was arrested and charged with lying to a peace officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Charla Pendergrass allegedly told an investigator that she saw Thomas leave the Inkster home where she was last seen on April 5, a fact that authorities say was a lie.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lying to a peace officer charge was dropped during Charla Pendergrass’ preliminary examination because the person she allegedly lied to was a federal agent.<\/p>\n According to the prosecution, a federal agent does not meet the definition of a “peace officer” under Michigan statute, so the case could not proceed.<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office said evidence allegedly showed that Jalen and Charla Pendergrass killed Thomas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Prosecutor Kym Worthy said that a friend of Charla Pendergrass called police and provided this information.<\/p>\n That friend said that on April 6, Charla Pendergrass called him and asked him to help transport a sealed plastic bin with unknown contents.\u00a0<\/p>\n The friend told police that he agreed, and moved the bin to a home on Millard Street in Southfield and put the bin in an SUV on April 11. Weeks later, that same bin, which contained Thomas’ body, was found in an SUV at the Southfield house, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n An autopsy determined that Thomas died from asphyxia.<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this report is from the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and previous coverage.<\/p>\n Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Inkster<\/a>Southfield<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Jalen Pendergrass. Inset: London Thomas FOX 2 – The boyfriend charged in the murder of Inkster teen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[3860,34147,27,34159,18,34160,34161,1827,34146],"class_list":["post-75501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-inkster","tag-london","tag-mi","tag-news","tag-oakland-county","tag-southfield","tag-us","tag-wayne-county"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116853599419498568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/snapshot-2025-04-18t063607.613.jpg\")
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