Former store security guard receives life sentence for killing shoplifter
MILWAUKEE WI August 7, 2026 A former Milwaukee gas station security guard convicted of killing a man who took snacks without paying for them was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, Aug. 6.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office charged William Pinkin, 59, with first-degree intentional homicide and a gun possession felony in connection to the shooting that killed Isaiah Allen.
In January, a jury deliberated for 20 minutes and found Pinkin guilty on both felony counts. The first-degree intentional homicide conviction carries a life sentence.
On Thursday, the judge sentenced Pinkin to life in prison, and he is not eligible for extended supervision.
According to prosecutors, this was not Pinkin’s first run-in with the law. He was convicted of first-degree reckless homicide in 1990 and released in 2018 but went back to prison in 2019 and was released again in March 2023.
Pinkin was not allowed to have a gun as a result of that felony conviction, but had one while working as a security guard anyway.
Police were called to the gas station near Teutonia and Roosevelt on the morning of Aug. 16, 2023. The victim, 29-year-old Isaiah Allen, was pronounced dead at the scene. He had been shot in the head, according to a criminal complaint.
Court filings said Allen grabbed a box of Little Debbie snack cakes and left without paying, and a security guard – later identified as Pinkin – got up from the back of the store, walked toward Allen and pulled out a gun.
Pinkin then rushed toward Allen, prosecutors said, and got a little more than an arm’s length from him before he shot Allen in the back of the head. Allen dropped to the ground, and surveillance video showed Pinkin picking up the snacks and going back inside the store.
According to the complaint, Pinkin was at the scene when police arrived and told responding officers – who were unaware of the surveillance video at the time – that he did not see the shooting. That surveillance video showed Pinkin was “milling around calmly,” and at one point smoking a cigarette, after the shooting.
Pinkin turned himself in two days after the shooting.
