Many Columbus murder cases in 2017 connected to another killing

What stands out, beyond the sheer number of killings Columbus had this year, are the correlations.

One violent death leads to another, it seems, in the 2017 homicides that police have defined as murders.

Sometimes it only seems that way: Sequence is not causation. Just because a subsequent homicide involves someone connected to an earlier one does not mean the first caused the second.

Police have categorized 35 of Columbus’ 43 homicides in 2017 as “murders,” meaning cases in which they either have filed murder charges or expect to. Cases not classified as murder include justifiable homicides involving self-defense, one accidental shooting and an infant’s death from which investigators await autopsy results.

Of the 35 cases being investigated as murders, 14 had some connection to another killing.

“I don’t think that we’ve ever seen the murders connected as much as we have this year – revenge killings, and the suspect in one murder being killed a month or two down the road,” said Gil Slouchick, who was just promoted to assistant police chief from the major heading the department’s investigative bureau.

“We’ve never experienced that here before.”

That’s how the year started: The first murder led to the second, by mistake.

On Jan. 5, people gathered in the 300 block of 32nd Avenue to watch two girls fight. Gunfire erupted, killing Dominique Devonte Horton, 22.

On Jan. 16, someone hoping to avenge Horton’s death gunned down 17-year-old Destiny Nelson at the Bull Creek Apartments on Woodruff Farm Road.

It was a case of mistaken identity, investigators said: Nelson had nothing to do with Horton’s homicide, in which police in late March charged Dondre Tyre Hill, 26, and William Bernard Washington, 21.

More connections

Here are other violent deaths that had some connection:

On April 1, Dudley Jones Jr., 44, fatally was shot on Ticknor Drive. On May 18, police killed the suspect they sought in Jones’ murder: They were trying to capture Deonte Giles at the Farley Homes housing complex when he drove off in a car with another man, initiating a chase.

Authorities said Giles hit a police car on Cusseta Road near 25th Avenue, wrecking both vehicles, then got out and aimed a gun at the officer who crashed. A second officer ran him over, killing him. The man with Giles was captured after a foot chase, investigators said. Authorities ruled Giles’ death a justifiable homicide.

Twice this year a single suspect was charged with two murders:

Brandon Scott, 34, was shot and killed July 7 at a house in the 800 block of Rigdon Road. Michael Fleming, 34, was found dead in the trunk of a burning car July 10 at Harbison Drive and Head Street.

Reginald Jackson, 26, was charged in both cases.

Jackson had faced murder charges before: In 2016, he was acquitted in the 2013 fatal shooting of 23-year-old Dior Cheney.

Cheney was driving a 2010 Ford Focus at Benning Drive and Head Street when a gunman fired into the vehicle, killing Cheney and wounding passenger Travis Porter. Porter, who identified Jackson as the gunman during his initial police interviews, denied that when called to testify at Jackson’s trial. He later was charged with perjury.

Porter is among this year’s murder victims: On Sept. 4, he fatally was shot at Hannah Heights Apartments, 909 Farr Road. Ten days later, police charged 19-year-old Robert Furr in Porter’s death.

Porter’s murder apparently had nothing to do with his testimony in Jackson’s trial, Slouchick said.

Also charged in two separate slayings was Brandon Senior.

He was accused of killing 25-year-old Nathan Johnson, a father of three expecting a fourth child. Johnson was shot Aug. 20 on his front porch at 2229 Eighth St.

Senior also was charged in a particularly cold-blooded shooting on Aug. 22 in the 3600 block of Fourth Avenue: He shot 33-year-old Tamir Harris in front of Harris’ 1-year-old daughter and the girl’s mother, police said.

“He walked off like he didn’t give a damn,” said Harris’ girlfriend Brittany Moody, pregnant with their child. “The way he looked at my baby daddy when he shot him, I couldn’t believe it.”

Here are other cases with commonalities, one involving a witness in a 2017 murder trial, and three the slayings of suspects in other murders:

• On Aug. 19, Cody Mathis, 21, was shot and killed at 51st Street and 15th Avenue. Mathis was a suspect in the June 26, 2013, murder of David Rutherford, a 57-year-old former radio personality found dead in the rear parking lot of Greater Ward Chapel AME on Talbotton Road.
• On Sept. 3, 19-year-old Takelia Johnson was mortally wounded in a drive-by shooting in the 900 block of Ewart Avenue. Police on Nov. 1 announced they were looking for suspect Kuamane “Lil Q” Ford, 19. Ford was found dead from a gunshot wound Nov. 7 at Sherwood Avenue and 44th Street. In Johnson’s homicide, police have charged another suspect, Adrian Harris, 30.
• On Nov. 17, 30-year-old Steve Phillips was found shot to death in the woods off Winston Road near Benning Drive. Phillips was the key witness in the June murder trial of Kevin “Cali” Henderson, allegedly a Gangster Disciple the jury convicted in the Nov. 12, 2014, execution-style killing of Chad Herring.
• On Dec. 9, police were called to the Efficiency Lodge of Columbus at 1776 Boxwood Place, where Damian Antwonne Belle, 23, and Kelsey Marshall, 21, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Belle was out of jail on bond, facing a murder charge in the March 21, 2014, assault on 23-month-old Ki’ja Bassett, whose mother he was dating at the time. The child, fatally injured in a beating, died at the Egleston children’s hospital in Atlanta three days later, investigators said.

Slouchick said police do not believe Belle’s homicide was related to the child’s death. Likewise, they do not believe Phillips’ testimony in Henderson’s trial had anything to do with his slaying.

The numbers

The 35 murders this year marked the most recorded since 1980, which is as far back as Georgia Bureau of Investigation statistics go.

By those records, 2017 outpaced 1993, when the city had 32, and topped the most recent peak in 2008, when Columbus had 30.

The number of murders police report rarely matches the number of homicides the coroner tallies, because the two agencies have different legal requirements.

The coroner must fill out a Georgia death certificate that does not distinguish between murder, manslaughter and justifiable homicide: A homicide is a homicide, regardless of whether anyone’s charged in the killing.

The state death certificate has five categories for the “manner of death”: accidental, homicide, suicide, natural causes such as disease, and “undetermined.”

Coroner Buddy Bryan’s list of this year’s homicides totals 42. It is missing one case Columbus police counted as a murder:

Jennifer Sisk, 42, of LaGrange, was killed Aug. 2 in a hit-and-run wreck involving five vehicles at the intersection of Talbotton Road and Veterans Parkway.

The coroner’s records count that as an accidental death, not a homicide. But police charged driver Courdia Bellamy with murder.

Bellamy, 28, also was charged with homicide by vehicle, reckless driving, fleeing police, having no proof of insurance, hit-and-run, failing to maintain lane and four counts of running a red light. Investigators felt his driving was so egregiously reckless it warranted a murder charge.

Counting Sisk’s case, the total number of homicides this year is 43.

Other homicides

Here are 2017 cases the coroner counts as homicides, but Columbus police have not categorized as murders:

Christopher Warden, 31, fatally was shot Feb. 6 after breaking into a woman’s apartment on Armour Avenue, where the resident fired in self-defense, police said.

Two-month-old Mariah Alston died July 8 at Egleston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta while being treated for skull fractures and other serious injuries. Both the police and the coroner are waiting for additional results from her autopsy to determine her cause of death.

As noted earlier, Deonte Marces Giles, 22, died May 18 when an officer ran him down after a car chase ended in a crash on Cusseta Road at 25th Avenue. Police said Giles’ death was a justifiable homicide.

Pedro Juan Carmoega, 36, fatally was stabbed during a July 4 confrontation at Big Creek Place. Authorities have charged no one in this case that Slouchick said may be presented to a grand jury for review.

Richard Vaughn Cummings Jr., 18, was shot and killed July 14 while sitting in the front passenger seat of a car at 909 Farr Road. This accidental shooting caused by friends’ mishandling a loaded gun led police to charge one juvenile with involuntary manslaughter and another with reckless conduct, Slouchick said.

Derrick Cureton, 23, was shot and killed Aug. 7 at a home in the 5300 block of Kingsberry Street. Authorities said Cureton forced his way into the residence, and the homeowner killed him in self-defense.

James Fuller, 52, was wanted on methamphetamine charges in Texas when a Columbus police officer shot him Sept. 4. Authorities ruled it justifiable, saying Fuller was fighting the officer trying to arrest him.

Robert Lewis, 29, was shot Oct. 1 at an apartment in the 2300 block of Fort Benning Road. Authorities ruled this self-defense, saying Lewis started a fight with someone outside.

Demographics

Black, male, young, and killed by a gun – that typified the victims this year.

Most of the 2017 murder victims were black males – 28 of the 35. Four were black females, two were Hispanic males and one was a white female.

Almost all the murders involved guns.

The victims’ ages ranged from 17 to 68, averaging 28 years old. About half were in their 20s – 17 of the 35. Six were teenagers, eight were in their 30s, three in their 40s, none in their 50s and one 68.

The 68-year-old was Joseph Howard Johnson III, killed Dec. 20 during an attempted robbery at the Columbus Pawn Shop, 2241 Fort Benning Road. An Army veteran, Johnson was working part-time as a security guard there.

A second employee and two suspects were wounded in an ensuing shootout. A 15-year-old has been jailed. The other suspect, 21, remains hospitalized.

Police also charged a juvenile, 16, in the Aug. 31 shooting of 19-year-old Tremaine Taylor.

Almost all of this year’s suspects were young: 21 of the 27 were in their teens or 20s. Among them were 23 black males, two white males and two black females.

While the victim’s average age was 28, the suspect’s this year was 23, ranging from 15 to 42. Ten were teenagers, 11 were in their 20s, and four in their 30s.

Three teens were charged in a single case: the Nov. 17 slaying of Kendrick High School student Javion Shorter, 17, found shot at Ballard Way Apartments on Hunter Road. He died two days later in the hospital.

Police said he’d had an argument with girlfriend Nashira Miller, 19. On Dec. 1, officers raided a home at Eagles Trace Apartments, 2001 Torch Hill Road, arresting Miller along with Javon Quindarious McClendon, 17, and Daijon Williams, 19.

Police also charged teenagers in the April 30 fatal shooting of Jakorbin King, 21, inside his apartment in the 1000 block of 33rd Street. Samuel Jones and Tramal Williams, both 17, were arrested.

Clayton Perry, 17, was charged in the Aug. 15 shooting of James Francesconi, 26, on Wickham Drive, and Andrew Scarborough, 16, was accused in the Oct. 24 shooting of Dieondre Murphy, 19, in the 4100 block of Young Avenue.

Cases unsolved

Investigators so far have identified suspects in all but 13 of this year’s 35 murders.

“We have viable leads that we are presently pursuing,” Slouchick said of those 13. “None of those cases has gone cold.”

Here are the 13, some already noted:

• Destiny Nelson, 17, shot Jan. 16 at Bull Creek Apartments on Woodruff Farm Road.
• Eric Parker, 28, shot Feb. 10 at a Conner Road apartment.
• Jason Boykin, 32, shot April 11 at 2021 Adair Ave.
• Glen Hollan Adipi, 23, shot May 8 in the 1400 block of 24th Street.
• Cody Mathis, 21, shot Aug. 19 at 51st Street and 15th Avenue.
• Luis Moreno, 29, shot Sept. 18 at 1024 50th St.
• Datrell Roberson, 23, and Xavier Scott, 28, shot Sept. 19 at 1424 24th St.
• Lonny Braxton, 35, shot Sept. 29 outside his 351 Clover Ave. home.
• Kuamane “Lil Q” Ford, 19, shot Nov. 7 at Sherwood Avenue and 44th Street.
• Steve Phillips, 30, found shot to death Nov. 17 off Winston Road.
• Damian Belle, 23, and Kelsey Marshall, 21, found shot to death Dec. 9 at 1776 Boxwood Place.

Anyone with information on those cases may call detectives at 706-653-3400.

“In all these cases, somebody out there knows something,” Slouchick said. “We have a difficult time with people not wanting to come forward to the police.

“They want us to do something. They want us to clear the cases. They want us to put the bad guys in jail. But we’re not on every street corner, and people have to help us take back their neighborhoods.”

This story was originally published December 29, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Many Columbus murder cases in 2017 connected to another killing."