After two days of deliberations, a Solano County Superior Court jury on Wednesday ruled that one of two men charged in a fatal 2018 Vallejo shooting is guilty of second-degree murder.

A panel of nine men and three women unanimously acquitted Costello Blackwell of first-degree murder but convicted him of a lesser crime. They also found he was a felon in possession of a firearm at the time he shot Daryl Huckaby, 47, on Feb. 10 and used a firearm to do so.

Dressed in a black suit, black-rimmed glasses and with a shaved head, Blackwell, 49, of Vallejo, showed no emotion as the verdicts were slowly read in Fairfield.

Then Judge Wendy Getty, replacing Judge Jeffrey C. Kauffman, who was on vacation, thanked the jurors as they left the courtroom.

Getty then scheduled a court hearing for 10:00 a.m. on September 25 in Department 1, Kauffman Courtroom, where a hearing on the “aggravating factors” in the case and the earlier blow to Blackwell was to be held.

Assistant District Attorney Bill Ainsworth led the prosecution during the month-long trial. Prominent Fairfield criminal defense attorney Vincent Maher represented Blackwell.

Before reading the verdict, Getty noted that the “findings” section was incomplete and ordered the jury back to the deliberations room to complete the form.

About 10 minutes later, the jurors returned, Getty read the verdict form, and then asked the jurors, one by one, to read the form and determine whether the verdict was, in fact, accurate. Each responded that it was.

When ultimately sentenced, Blackwell will likely receive a sentence of 15 years to life for the second-degree felony, but he could also likely get more time if Judge Kauffman finds the aggravating circumstances to be true.

Blackwell was convicted in March 2020 of trying to kill a potential witness. He received a sentence of 52 years to life for attempted murder.

In the latest trial, he was charged with murdering Huckaby with a firearm, as was his co-defendant, Daniel Anthony Street, a 39-year-old former Hercules resident. But on July 17, six days before his separate jury trial was to begin, Street pleaded no contest to second-degree murder. Both remain in custody at Stanton Correctional Facility.

With defense attorney Terry Ray at his side, Street entered a plea of ​​not guilty, admitting no guilt but also offering no defense. Judge Kauffman immediately found him guilty, denied parole and told him he faced a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in prison when he was sentenced at 9 a.m. Nov. 8.

Although Street did not fire the fatal shot that killed Huckaby, Ainsworth said the law states that if a person aided or abetted a killing, they too can be charged with murder.

“He (Street) has a motive and he brought Blackwell in,” he said in a text message Tuesday, adding that Teiquon Cortez testified that Street “came to Blackwell’s house and then Blackwell is the one who killed Huckaby.” Another witness corroborated Cortez’s testimony, Ainsworth added.

Additionally, court documents indicate Street was in the area when Huckaby was shot and killed.

As previously reported, following a 2020 trial, Blackwell was found guilty of attempting to murder Cortez, who was then 29, on Nov. 5, 2018, also in Vallejo.

During his attempted murder trial, Cortez testified that he witnessed Blackwell, an employee of Vallejo-based moving company Royal Transport, fire a single shot from a gun that struck and killed Huckaby, who was inside the camper, which later crashed on Tuolumne Street.

Several months later, on November 1, Blackwell allegedly went to Cortez’s apartment behind a moving company and shot him twice with a shotgun, wounding him.

During the trial, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wood called more than a dozen witnesses, including Vallejo police investigators, doctors, cell phone tower experts and at least one person who helped Cortez after he was shot.

Cortez testified that he walked across the street to a Shell gas station where, bleeding profusely from his left elbow and back from the gunshots, he received first aid before paramedics and Vallejo police arrived.

During court testimony, defense investigator Eugene Borghello said Cortez told him during a January 2019 interview at the Solano County Jail that Blackwell shot him twice with a shotgun for “threatening Mr. Blackwell’s wife.”

Cortez also told Borghello of the Fairfield Special Investigations Group that he was in the car with Blackwell when he shot Huckaby.