15-year-old fired 8 shots to gun down popular Columbus High grad, prosecutor says

Fifteen-year-old James Oliver unloaded eight .45-caliber bullets at Bobby Jerome Seawright Jr. the night he gunned the popular Columbus High grad down on Branton Woods Drive, leaving him dead in the street beside his open car door.

That’s what Senior Assistant District Attorney Don Kelly told jurors during opening statements Monday in Oliver’s murder trial in Muscogee Superior Court.

But Kelly cited no motive for the killing, and said police sifting through Seawright’s cellphone, found inside his parked car that was still running when officers arrived, found no calls or texts indicating the two had been in contact before the shooting on Dec. 17, 2016.

A nearby resident’s 911 call reporting gunfire was recorded at 2:20 a.m. Detectives canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses found security cameras that recorded a suspect wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and pants with an emblem on one leg, Kelly said.

That footage showed the suspect had been roaming through the neighborhood between Forrest Road and Woodruff Farm Road since 1:37 a.m. The daughter of the man who called 911 said she looked out her window when she heard shots, and saw someone in a gray hoodie running toward Forrest Road, Kelly said.

The security cameras showed Seawright’s car first pass through the area at 2:11 a.m. Seawright had been out that night with a friend, whom he had just dropped off on Viking Drive, about a block away, the prosecutor said.

The footage showed Seawright drive through and stop, then pull out and head back toward Forrest Road, Kelly said. Meanwhile the suspect in the hoodie could be seen hiding and peeking around a corner at the car.

Then a recording showed Seawright coming back, and the suspect in the hoodie running down Branton Woods Drive, where Seawright saw him and stopped, Kelly said.

A camera about 100 yards away recorded Oliver 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 car, the prosecutor said.

They apparently talked for about a minute before Seawright went back and opened his driver’s side door, at which point Oliver walked around to the front of the car where eight muzzle flashes were recorded on video, Kelly said.

Shot three times in the chest, Seawright died there, just 10 minutes after he’d dropped his friend off on Viking Drive.

Police canvassing the area found a magazine from a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol in a nearby field, but never found the gun, Kelly said. Investigators initially were stumped.

Seeking leads in the case, police publicized the surveillance video. They soon heard from a witness who said he was dating Oliver’s mother, and was awakened at the mother’s home that night when Oliver came in looking “agitated,” Kelly said.

When the boyfriend asked what was wrong, Oliver said, “Man, I had to do something bad,” and told him 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 lacks the proof needed to convict him, the attorney said.

“Not one piece of tangible evidence tied Mr. Oliver to this crime,” he said.

The slaying shocked Seawright’s former classmates who said he was a friendly, entertaining young man who made no enemies.

He had graduated from Columbus High in 2009, and at 25 was soon to gain a degree in sports medicine from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.

More than 100 people showed up at Columbus High for a candlelight vigil in his memory.

“He was always smiling,” said Carol Wingard, who taught Seawright when he was a high school senior. “I mean he would come into the room with a smile and he would welcome people. He was so friendly. He was just light to everybody. That’s not common in every teenager, but he was just a young man of faith, and he talked about his faith.”

Oliver is being tried on 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.

The trial resumes Tuesday in Judge Maureen Gottfried’s court in the Columbus Government Center.

This story was originally published July 16, 2018 at 5:33 PM.