Jury reaches verdict in homicide of popular Columbus High grad
A Columbus jury found James Oliver not guilty of all charges Monday in the Dec. 17, 2016, fatal shooting of Bobby Jerome Seawright Jr.
Jurors deliberated about six hours Friday before delivering the verdict within minutes of returning to court at 9 a.m. Monday.
Oliver faced charges of malice or deliberate murder, of felony murder for allegedly killing Seawright while committing the felony of aggravated assault, of aggravated assault and of three counts of using a firearm to commit a felony.
Prosecutors alleged Oliver, then-15 years old, unloaded eight .45-caliber bullets at Seawright the night the popular Columbus High School graduate was gunned down on Branton Woods Drive at Branton Lane, where he was found dead in the street beside his open car door, with the vehicle’s engine still running.
Investigators found no evidence the two knew each other, as no exchange of cellphone calls or messages between them preceded the shooting.
That led to an odd prosecution theory of how they came to confront each other: Authorities alleged Oliver that night was lurking in the area between Forrest Road and Woodruff Farm Road, throwing rocks at passing cars on those main arteries, and trying to lure the drivers to pursue him down side streets.
Surveillance video collected in the area showed a youth investigators claimed to be Oliver prowling through the neighborhood. The person depicted was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and gray pants with an emblem on one leg.
A motorist who had driven down Woodruff Farm Road before the shooting testified that someone matching that description came from the roadside, threw a rock at her car and ran, but she did not follow him. Prosecutors theorized the same thing happened to Seawright, who unlike the earlier witness did not drive on, but circled back.
The guy in the gray hoodie was first recorded in the neighborhood at 1:37 a.m., running back and forth and bending over to pick things up where landscaping rocks were on the ground.
The security cameras showed Seawright’s car first pass through at 2:11 a.m., right after Seawright had dropped a friend off on Viking Drive, about a block away.
The footage showed Seawright drive through and stop, then pull out and head back toward Forrest Road. Meanwhile the suspect in the hoodie could be seen hiding and peeking around a corner at Seawright’s car.
Then the video showed Seawright circling back, and the suspect in the hoodie running down Branton Woods Drive, where Seawright saw him and stopped.
A camera about 100 yards away recorded the guy in the hoodie approaching the passenger’s side of Seawright’s car and standing there about 30 seconds before Seawright got out and walked around to that side of the vehicle.
The two apparently talked for about a minute before Seawright went back to his driver’s side door, at which point the man in the hoodie walked around to the front of the car, where eight muzzle flashes were recorded on video.
Shot three times in the chest, Seawright died there, just 10 minutes after he’d dropped his friend off on Viking Drive.
A nearby resident’s 911 call reporting gunfire was recorded at 2:20 a.m. The daughter of the man who called 911 said she looked out her bedroom window when she heard shots, and saw someone in a gray hoodie running toward Forrest Road.
Police canvassing the area found a magazine from a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol in a nearby field, but never found the gun. Investigators initially were stumped.
Then later that same day, the woman whose car had been hit by a rock saw an officer working security at Ezell’s Catfish, 4001 Warm Springs Road, and she asked him about the shooting, and told him what she had witnessed.
Seeking additional tips, police publicized the surveillance video, and soon heard from another witness who said he had been dating Oliver’s mother, and was awakened at the mother’s home that night when Oliver came in looking “agitated,” said Senior Assistant District Attorney Don Kelly.
The boyfriend reported that when he asked what was wrong, Oliver said, “Man, I had to do something bad,” and told the witness he had been breaking into cars when someone drove up on him, and he had to shoot the driver, Kelly said.
Learning Oliver was a student at Hardaway High School, police showed the video to teachers there, and seven said the suspect in the hoodie looked like Oliver, Kelly said. Oliver at the time was living with his mother on Wellborn Drive, about a mile from where Seawright died, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Stacey Jackson countered that others who knew Oliver could not identify him from the video, and some thought the person in the hoodie was someone else. With no gun, no fingerprints and no DNA evidence linking Oliver to the homicide, the prosecution’s case lacked the proof needed to convict him, the attorney said.
Jackson reiterated that point after Monday’s verdict, saying police could not establish even that Oliver was in the area where Seawright was shot. The video footage was too blurred or distant for any viewer to recognize the person in the hoodie, and detectives never found any of Oliver’s clothes that matched the description.
Arrested about a week before he turned 16 in January 2017, Oliver was unable to pay his bond, and remained jailed as he awaited trial, marking a second birthday behind bars this past Jan. 31.
Now 17, he has no other charges pending against him. He was released from the county jail about noon Monday.
Seawright, 25, was a 2009 Columbus High graduate studying sports medicine at Georgia Southern University, where he was just shy of obtaining his degree. He attended the Cusseta Road Church of Christ, where his funeral was held on Christmas Eve 2016.
This story was originally published July 23, 2018 at 4:10 PM.