Jury finds Reginald Jackson not guilty in homicide of Dior Cheney

After four hours’ deliberation, the jury in the murder trial of Reginald Jackson found him not guilty on all charges Tuesday in the 2013 fatal shooting of Dior Cheney.

Jackson, 25, who has been jailed since his arrest in April 2014, was to be released Tuesday afternoon, as defense attorney Melvin Cooper asked the prosecution to file any documents necessary for the jail to let him go.

The jury foreman afterward declined to comment on the deliberations, but the prosecution’s case clearly was torpedoed by the shooting’s only witness, Travis Porter, who under oath said he lied in 2013 when he told police Jackson was the gunman who wounded him three times and killed Cheney in a barrage of gunfire on Oct. 29, 2013.

Porter, 34, testified repeatedly Thursday that even though he picked Jackson’s picture from a photo lineup, the defendant was not the man who shot him:

“I know it’s not Reginald Jackson…. Reginald Jackson did not pull the trigger that night,” Porter said. “I know that for a fact.”

Of his identifying Jackson to detectives, he said: “It was a false statement.”

Police testified that when they questioned him in 2013, Porter sounded certain Jackson was the gunman who fired 15 rounds from a Glock 9-mm pistol at the car Porter and Cheney were in at Head Street and Benning Drive.

They said Porter described in detail the clothes the shooter was wearing, and told them he clearly saw Jackson’s face beneath the hood of a sweatshirt when the headlights shone on him.

Porter in court said he just agreed to anything the detectives asked: “I just told them whatever so they’d leave me alone.”

Had he been convicted, Jackson could have faced life in prison. He faced charges of malice or intentional murder, felony murder for allegedly killing Cheney while committing the felony of aggravated assault, aggravated assault and using a firearm to commit a felony.

Porter is a convicted felon who, unlike Jackson, will remain in jail. He has multiple convictions dating back to 2001, and is currently serving time for felony possession of marijuana and being a felon with a firearm.

He is a Columbus native who grew up on Winston Road, a neighborhood known for drugs and violence. In 2013, he had moved to Macon, Ga., where Cheney was his neighbor.

In that day in October 2013, he and Cheney, 23, drove from Macon to Columbus to buy a pound of marijuana. Porter said they went to a Winston Road “trap house,” a place rented for dealing drugs, where Porter asked an acquaintance to find them a dealer.

Porter testified the acquaintance summoned Corey Purdue, whom Porter had beaten and robbed during a dice game in 2012. They recognized each other, and Purdue kept a pistol in his lap and would not get out of his car as he and Porter talked.

When they failed to agree on a price, the negotiations ended, and Porter started hawking clothes out of the trunk of Cheney’s Ford Focus. “I had some children’s clothes I was trying to sell,” Porter testified.

Meanwhile Jackson, who also was at the trap house, started talking to his lifelong friend Purdue and glaring at Porter, who glared back. As darkness fell, Porter and Cheney decided to head home to Macon.

With Cheney driving and Porter in the front passenger’s seat, they traveled south on Winston Road to Head Street and turned east to where Head Street comes to a T-shaped intersection at Benning Drive.

There a man on a bicycle waited at the stop sign. When Cheney stopped the car, the man drew a pistol and started shooting, riddling the Ford’s passenger side with bullets.

Porter was shot three times before he climbed out of the car and ran. Cheney, shot in the head, then sped across Benning Drive and rammed a utility pole on the far side. He was found dead in the car.

In his closing argument, Cooper stressed to jurors that Porter’s recognizing the gunman was unlikely: The shooting happened about 8 p.m. when it was dark outside, and it happened fast. With the gunman clad in a hooded sweatshirt, Porter’s being able to recognize the assailant’s face was unlikely, he said.

In his closing, Senior Assistant District Attorney Don Kelly told the jury Porter’s changing his story is not unusual for someone from Winston Road, where residents rarely cooperate with the police, lest they be labeled snitches. “They’re dealing with a code of silence in that neighborhood,” he said of police.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Jury finds Reginald Jackson not guilty in homicide of Dior Cheney."