4-year-old saw teen fatally shoot her babysitter in a bedroom at Wilson Homes, mom says

A 4-year-old girl was in the bedroom with Lernard “Baby” Bonner the day he fatally shot Lakeisha Moses in the face, according to testimony Tuesday in Bonner’s murder trial.

“Baby shot my auntie,” the little girl told her mother, Sakima Grier, as she ran from the bedroom down the hallway of the apartment in Building 107 of Columbus’ Wilson Homes housing complex, 3400 Eighth Ave.

Grier testified she put the girl in a room with two other children and went to investigate. Before she got to the bedroom, she met Bonner, who grabbed her and said, “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

Bonner, then 17, left the apartment. Another woman got to the bedroom before Grier, and screamed.

Grier walked in to see 16-year-old Moses lying on the bed, bleeding from her face.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Don Kelly asked Grier whether Moses was moving.

“No,” she replied, “just her eyes was going to the back of her head.”

Medics rushed Moses to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 10:57 a.m. July 1, 2016, after going into cardiac arrest. Bonner surrendered to police about 3 p.m. the next day.

He’s on trial on charges of malice or intentional murder, felony murder for allegedly causing the death of his on-again, off-again girlfriend while committing the felony of aggravated assault, and aggravated assault.

The shooting could not have been purely accidental, Kelly told jurors in his opening statement.

Though the gun was never recovered, the evidence shows Bonner had a .38-caliber revolver he must have reloaded right before the shooting, and the weapon had a safety feature that required the trigger be fully depressed before the gun would fire, Kelly said.

Moses did not live at Wilson Homes, but sometimes stayed there to help care for Grier’s children. Grier had known Moses since the teen was 7 or 8 years old, Kelly said.

Grier that morning first discovered Bonner was in her apartment when she looked in the bedroom and saw Bonner and Moses asleep. Around 9 a.m., Grier learned daycare would be closed that day, so she went to tell Moses.

When she walked in, she saw Moses lying awake in the bed and Bonner sitting on the bed holding a revolver. She told him she didn’t want a loaded gun in her home where her children might find it.

She said Bonner unloaded the weapon, placing the bullets on a windowsill, and put the revolver under his pillow.

Planning to take her kids shopping, Grier left the room to start getting them ready.

About 20 minutes later, she heard what she assumed was a firecracker: Neighborhood kids had been setting off fireworks, as July 4 was just three days away.

But then the 4-year-old came running down the hall.

Finding Moses shot in the right jaw, Grier called 911 at 9:23 a.m.

Kelly said the bullet did not stop at Moses’ jaw, but traveled into her brain, lodging there.

Revolvers do not eject shell casings the way semi-automatic pistols do, but police searching the scene found an unfired .38-caliber bullet under the bed, Kelly said.

Kelly alleged this sequence was obvious from the evidence: Bonner must have reloaded the gun after Grier left the room, pointed it at Moses and purposefully pulled the trigger all the way, else the revolver would not have fired.

An aggravated assault charge requires only that a defendant use a weapon to place another person in fear of his or her life, Kelly noted. If jurors decide Bonner did that, then he committed aggravated assault. If that’s how he caused Moses’ death, they can find him guilty of felony murder.

The prosecution maintains his shooting Moses was intentional, the prosecutor said.

“Intent can be inferred. Malice can be inferred,” he said, later adding, “I expect the evidence will show that he pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger.”

Bonner’s attorney Nancy Miller asked jurors to keep an open mind, calling it a “tragic case” with no evidence Bonner intended to shoot Moses.

The case is being tried before Superior Court Judge Ben Land, whom Gov. Nathan Deal appointed to the bench in January.

This story was originally published April 10, 2018 at 2:53 PM with the headline "4-year-old saw teen fatally shoot her babysitter in a bedroom at Wilson Homes, mom says."