Jury finds pair guilty of murder in Calvin Grimes' fatal shooting

A jury today found Joshua Leonard and Jarvis Alexander guilty of murder in the 2010 shooting that left Calvin "Teddy" Grimes paralyzed until his death on June 26, 2011.

The jury deliberated for 90 minutes before reaching the verdict.

Each defendant was convicted of murder, aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated assault and one of using a firearm to commit a crime.

Superior Court Judge William Rumer set their sentencing for 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Testimony in the week-long trial showed Grimes’ assault was set in motion when he stopped in Columbus’ Booker T. Washington Apartments off Veterans Parkway on Oct. 19, 2010, and agreed to give Alexander and Leonard a ride to the Little Joe’s liquor store at Third Avenue and Sixth Street.

Grimes in the 10 months he lived paralyzed after the assault told friends and relatives that when he parked his 2006 Chrysler 300 across the street from Little Joe’s in a Fourth Street Towers apartment driveway at 543 Third Ave., Leonard shot him from the front passenger seat and ran.

Because Grimes and Alexander were longtime friends, Grimes turned for help to Alexander, who was in the back seat on the passenger’s side. Grimes told relatives Alexander said, “I got to do it,” pulled out a gun and fired repeatedly.

Unable to escape, Grimes closed his eyes until the shooting stopped, he told friends and relatives. Police responding to reports of gunfire found him still in the driver’s seat, gurgling on his own blood. The car was still running and in gear, with Grimes’ foot on the brake, officers said.

Detective Wayne Fairbairn testified police found 11 shell casings at Grimes’ car, eight of them .22 caliber and three .40 caliber.

Grimes died with four bullets still lodged in his body, two of medium caliber in his spine and right hip, and two of small caliber in his right shoulder and neck. The shooting left him unable to breathe without a ventilator.

He first was hospitalized at The Midtown Medical Center where his mother works, and later was treated at facilities in Albany and Bainbridge before coming home to live with his mother.

Other friends and relatives helped her care for Grimes, who could not bathe himself or shift position to avoid bed sores.

A forensic pathologist earlier testified Grimes died at age 20 from complications such as a blood infection called sepsis and from the extensive bed sores he suffered.

A man who once shared a jail cell with Leonard testified last week that the pair gunned down Grimes because they believed Grimes cooperated with police in the murder case against Melvin “Big Teddy” Williams.

The witness was Dewayne Carter, who said Leonard not only bragged about the assault, but put a photo of Grimes’ body up on the cell wall. Carter said Leonard boasted of killing Grimes on behalf of “Big Teddy,” who is Leonard’s cousin: “He wanted him to pay for what he’d done to his cousin,” Carter said.

According to archived Ledger-Enquirer reports, Williams was charged in the Aug. 8, 2007, fatal shooting of Ronald Burrous of Box Springs, Ga., who police said was trying to buy crack cocaine at the Booker T. Washington Apartments.

Police said Grimes referred Burrous and a girlfriend to Williams for the purchase, but an argument ensued, provoking Williams to pull a gun and shoot Burrous in the back.

Burrous’ girlfriend took him to the hospital about 10:15 p.m., then drove to Box Springs to notify his family. When they got to the hospital two hours later, they were informed Burrous had died.

Initially Grimes also was charged in Burrous’ death, but at age 16, he was still a juvenile. Williams was 17, an adult under Georgia law.

According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, Williams later was sentenced to 15 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, and started serving his time on May 13, 2008. He’s now in the Autry State Prison in Pelham, Ga.

Leonard was arrested for Grimes’ homicide on July 16, 2011. Carter testified he and Leonard were bunkmates in an eight-man cell when Leonard boasted of killing Grimes to his cellmates.

“They discussed it like it was nothing,” he said, adding Leonard “brought out pictures of the dead body” and posted one on the cell wall by a window.

Prosecutors showed jurors the photograph, which depicted Grimes from the waist up, lying on his back, his torso bare.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Chief Assistant District Attorney Al Whitaker, told jurors some officials called it “the click-click case” because of the manner in which Grimes identified his assailants to police.

Grimes lay unconscious in the hospital for five weeks after the shooting. When Fairbairn went to The Midtown Medical Center to question him on Oct. 11, 2010, Grimes was conscious but could not speak. He could make the shape of words with his lips, but the only sound he could make was a click with his mouth.

So Fairburn wrote the letters of the alphabet out on his note pad, and asked Grimes to click each time a letter fit his assailants’ names. In this manner Grimes clicked the letter sequence to spell the names of Leonard and Alexander.

He later was able to tell friends and family what happened when physicians fitted his trachea with a device that enabled him to speak.

Grimes’ mother Judy Grimes and other family and friends attended each day of the trial, but declined to comment after Monday’s verdict.

This story was originally published November 3, 2014 at 4:39 PM with the headline "Jury finds pair guilty of murder in Calvin Grimes' fatal shooting."