Columbus double homicide suspect seeks capital defender in murder case
The Columbus man accused of gunning down his ex-girlfriend in front of her 6-year-old daughter as he killed a second woman Monday will need an attorney qualified for death-penalty cases.
District Attorney Mark Jones has said he will seek capital punishment in the double-murder case against Quartez Tremon Thomas, 25.
Police say Thomas fatally shot his ex-girlfriend Kiera Williams and her friend Jasmine Trice in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store. The killings happened the day after Thomas shot at a Buxton Drive home where Williams lived with her parents, detectives said.
Thomas was to have a preliminary hearing Friday morning in Recorder’s Court, but public defender Robin King asked Judge Julius Hunter to postpone it to give the Georgia Public Defenders Council Office of the Capital Defender time to assign an attorney to the capital case.
Thomas was not present at Friday’s hearing, which Hunter postponed until March 23.
Besides two counts of murder, Thomas is charged with assault and other offenses stemming from the shooting Sunday on Buxton Drive, where police were called at 9 p.m. to the house hit by bullets in the 5600 block, according to officers’ reports.
Besides four counts of aggravated assault, Thomas in that case is charged with one count each of criminal trespass, of using a gun to commit a crime, and of first-degree cruelty to children.
The next day, Thomas shot Williams and Trice around 4 p.m. in the parking lot of the Family Dollar at 2112 Floyd Road, where officers found Trice dead beside the vehicle, and Williams wounded in the front passenger seat, with her young daughter uninjured in the back, detectives said.
Williams died at Piedmont Columbus Regional at 4:50 p.m. She was 28 years old. Trice was 30.
The child who witnessed the slayings is not related to Thomas, investigators said.
About a dozen friends and family were in court for Thomas’ hearing Friday. They declined to speak with reporters afterward.
Anyone with more information on the homicides is asked to contact Detective Sherman Hayes at 706-225-4268 or shayes@columbusga.org. An anonymous tip line is at 706-653-3188.
The death penalty
In an interview Friday afternoon at his Government Center office, the district attorney said he chose to pursue the death penalty in Thomas’ case because of the “aggravating circumstances.”
“It’s just egregious, the facts with the shooting of the friend in addition to the victim, as well as doing the shooting in front of the victim’s daughter,” Jones said. “That’s unacceptable. We can’t tolerate it.”
He said the circumstances fit the legal requirements for seeking the death penalty in Georgia. Among them are:
- The capital offense was committed while the offender was committing another capital felony, in this case a second homicide.
- The offender “created a great risk of death to more than one person in a public place” with a weapon “hazardous to the lives of more than one person.”
Jones, who took office in January, acknowledged he previously has not served as lead attorney in a capital case, but said he believes he has the background to pursue one.
Columbus currently has a pending death-penalty case initiated by Jones’ predecessor, Julia Slater, who lost her re-election bid last year.
The defendant in that case is Brandon David Conner, accused in the Aug. 21, 2014, deaths of his 32-year-old girlfriend Rosella “Mandy” Mitchell and their 6-month-old son Dylan Conner, whose charred bodies were found in their burned 1324 Winifred Lane home. Police said Mitchell was stabbed to death.
Jones said he believes Conner may be willing to plead to a sentence of life in prison, but whether to accept such a plea requires discussing the matter with the victims’ family.
“It meets all the criteria as well for a death-penalty case, so, yeah, for right now that’s a death-penalty case for sure,” Jones said. “But there has been talk that the guy may want to plead to life without parole, so we definitely want to look at that before continuing to expend judicial resources on it. I haven’t heard anything official on that from him.”
This story was originally published March 5, 2021 at 11:01 AM.