OAKLAND — Ordinarily, a murder defendant enjoying a frosty strawberry milkshake while dressed in a jail jumpsuit at the courthouse would be unheard of.

But for 42-year-old Ronald McGregor, July 1, 2026 was no ordinary day. He’d been in jail for four years while the charges were pending, but now a resolution was at hand: McGregor would have to plead no contest to second degree murder and receive a life sentence, with a chance for parole in 20 years. McGregor appeared ready to take it, but first he had a food order for his deputy public defender, Benjamin Chiang: a strawberry shake from McDonald’s.

Chiang had fulfilled the request but before McGregor could drink, he needed approval from Judge Scott Patton. There was an off-the-record discussion, then Patton’s clerk called the case. Patton acknowledged the request from McGregor’s lawyer was unusual but said he was prepared to go along with it.

“I said that I would do that even though it’s normally against the rules,” Patton said. “So I did make that order that he could have the milkshake.”

After that, it was time for serious business. Patton made a second uncommon order, sealing the courtroom — after making sure prosecutors didn’t object — so just he, McGregor, and McGregor’s attorney could discuss the case. After the sealed proceedings, for which no transcript exists, Patton called the prosecutor back in and announced the plea deal would proceed.

Then McGregor formally entered his no contest plea, with the understanding it comes with a life sentence. He is scheduled to spend another full year in jail before he’s sent to prison sometime in Autumn of 2027.

McGregor’s victim, Darius Brazell, was a 55-year-old handyman so beloved in the community that mourners risked a rare public gathering to hold a vigil for him during the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020. Loved ones drove for hours to attend.

“Whenever we needed a door fixed in our home, whenever we needed our car worked on … if we had a table that needed to be fixed, everybody called Uncle Darius,” his sister-in-law Katrina Williams told this news organization in 2020. “For him to have his life taken like that, and to die on these streets with nobody with him?”

A review of the evidence against McGregor could explain why he was willing to accept such a harsh result. Brazell was shot shortly after exiting an AC Transit bus near Lakeshore Avenue and Madana Boulevard. McGregor remained free for the next two years, but when police arrested him in 2022 they said it was based upon a DNA match from the crime scene, and a ballistics match that spelled out even more trouble for McGregor.

Three days before Brazell was killed, McGregor allegedly shot up his girlfriend’s apartment in San Francisco. By 2022, he was facing charges of attempting to murder her in San Mateo County. Police matched shell casings from the San Francisco shooting to the Brazell homicide scene, according to court records. The murder was also caught on video from cameras on the bus.

McGregor has prior convictions — for forcible rape in 2005 and bank robbery in 2013 — that could have been used to beef up his sentence even more. Before the plea deal was struck, he had been scheduled to go to trial in July.

In 2020, Brazell’s adult son, Darian, told this news organization that his dad was a “a good, loving person who took care of all of his kids” and that he hoped the shooter would do the right thing and “turn himself in.”

“We don’t have any hatred toward anybody. We just want to know what would make somebody want to kill a 55-year-old innocent man,” Darian Brazell said.