Columbus man shot in head possibly victim of gang retaliation, investigator testifies
Marquise Tremaine Hawkins’ defense attorney thought a judge heard more testimony Friday exonerating his client than incriminating him in the 2020 fatal shooting of Alex Bales-Davis.
Still Columbus Recorder’s Court Judge Julius Hunter found probable cause to send the case to Muscogee Superior Court, ordering Hawkins, 27, held without bond.
He was booked into the county jail at 2:53 p.m. Thursday, charged with murder and aggravated assault in the Aug. 6, 2020, homicide. A police detective described it as a gang-related shooting connected to a series of earlier disputes, one of which resulted in Hawkins being seriously wounded.
He was so severely injured in the Aug. 3, 2020, shooting in Phenix City that he could barely move, and had to stay at his mother’s home in Columbus, defense witnesses testified, telling the judge that Hawkins could not have been at the scene where Bales-Davis was shot.
The conflicting testimony between those witnesses and that of police Sgt. Dexter Wysinger led to a long and complicated hearing involving three separate incidents over a span of weeks.
Timeline of three incidents
Wysinger said Hawkins, allegedly associated with the Crips street gang, got into a brawl with Bales-Davis and others about three weeks before the homicide, and the “fistfight” culminated in gunfire.
That was followed by the Aug. 3 attack in Phenix City, where gunmen sprayed bullets at a home where Hawkins was hit four times, twice in the leg, once in the hip and again in the torso, said his defense attorney Stacey Jackson. Also wounded were a woman and a child, and two vehicles were damaged, one of which belonged to Hawkins, Jackson said.
Hawkins was in the hospital until Aug. 5, and Phenix City police impounded his Dodge Charger, Jackson said.
Then came Aug. 6, when Columbus police were called to a gas station at 3922 Buena Vista Road, where they found 26-year-old Bales-Davis shot in the head, Wysinger testified.
Bales-Davis had been in the front passenger’s seat of a car a woman was driving, and she was seriously wounded, requiring prolonged medical treatment, the officer said.
Detectives learned the shooting had occurred at the intersection of Brennan Road and St. Mary’s Road, where gunmen had followed the car before opening fire, Wysinger said.
He alleged the shots came from Hawkins’ Dodge Charger, though defense witnesses claimed the Dodge was so badly damaged in the Phenix City shooting that it was inoperable at the time.
Police questioning
Wysinger said people associated with Hawkins told police he blamed Bales-Davis for the Phenix City shooting, so Hawkins with others hatched a plan to kill him in retaliation. Cell phone records confirmed Hawkins was in contact with his cohorts that day, the detective said.
He said Hawkins under questioning denied killing Bales-Davis, but admitted threatening to do so “out of anger.” Hawkins added that he thought the victim “got what was coming to him,” Wysinger said.
Whether Hawkins’ car had been repaired, and whether he was well enough to join in shooting Bales-Davis, became a matter of dispute between Wysinger and the defense witnesses. Wysinger said Hawkins spoke of driving the car to South Carolina with some friends around that time. The witnesses said that trip happened weeks later, after the car was repaired.
Jackson argued police and prosecutors lacked the evidence to sustain the murder charge, as no one had identified Hawkins as the shooter, nor identified his car as the one at the scene. Police also had no murder weapon to match to bullets or shell casings, he noted, yet Hawkins had alibi witnesses to say he was at his mother’s home that day.
Judge Hunter said Jackson’s arguments were more suited to a jury trial than a probable cause hearing, and let the charges stand, ordering Hawkins to have no contact with the shooting victims’ families as the case proceeds.