Columbus jury takes only 37 minutes to find man guilty of ‘execution-style’ murder
After roughly 37 minutes of deliberation, a Muscogee County Superior Court jury found Brandon Jarrell Senior guilty in the August 2017 “execution-style” slaying of Tamir Harris.
Senior was found guilty of murder, aggravated assault, using a gun to commit a crime and being a convicted felon with a firearm. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in his first of two potential murder trials. Law enforcement alleges that Senior fatally shot another man days before he murdered Harris.
Closing arguments in Senior’s trial ended Monday morning.
“It just shows you the evidence is overwhelming when you return a verdict that quick,” Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Mark Jones told the Ledger-Enquirer. “I think (the jury) thought about it over the weekend. They had the evidence over the weekend.”
Among the evidence that implicated Senior in the 2017 shooting of Tamir Demond Harris was blood found on Senior’s shoes, which DNA tests matched to Harris, prosecutor Kimberly Schwartz told jurors.
Police also found a .40-caliber pistol in an apartment Senior shared with a girlfriend, and ballistics tests showed it ejected a shell casing that was found beneath Harris’ body the day he was shot dead in the street in the 3600 block of Fourth Avenue.
Investigators never found the bullet that exited Harris’ forehead when Senior walked up behind him and shot him in the back of the head, Schwartz said.
The shooting was preceded by no argument or other provocation, she added. “This was an execution,” she said. “This was a sneak attack.”
The 10:36 a.m. shooting was recorded on surveillance video, from a camera at a home across the street, but the image was not clear enough to show the gunman’s face, she said.
When he was shot on Aug. 22, 2017, Harris was standing by a car talking to relatives in the vehicle. Among them was Harris’ girlfriend, pregnant with his child, who was holding their 1-year-old daughter, witnesses said.
Harris had a 2-year-old son at his side, they said, and a friend in another car nearby was holding the couple’s 11-month-old baby.
Schwartz told jurors Harris was popular in the neighborhood where he was killed. “He was a friend to many people. He took care of his friends,” she said.
He also was involved in dealing drugs, she added: “He made money in ways that were not always totally legal.”
But Schwartz did not say the shooting was drug-related, and emphasized that prosecutors are not required to prove a motive in a murder case.
Because of Harris’ popularity, neighbors were outraged by his shooting, and some went looking for Senior, whom they knew as “Chip,” the prosecutor said.
Senior left the scene to walk to the apartment he and his girlfriend shared down the street, Schwartz said. A crowd began to form outside, and police arriving at 10:41 a.m. were directed there, she said.
Police feared a retaliation killing would follow, Schwartz said: “It was that tense.”
No one came to the door when officers knocked, and the girlfriend did not answer until officers on a loudspeaker told someone to come out, she said. Eventually Senior surrendered there.
Inside, police found the pistol, and the pair of black sneakers with blood on them, Schwartz said.
Senior’s attorney, Anthony Johnson, told jurors police found no DNA evidence on his client to tie him to Harris’ shooting, and no gunshot residue on his hands to show he’d fired a gun.
Johnson told the Ledger-Enquirer that Monday’s results were “unfortunate,” and that Senior plans to appeal the ruling. Johnson said he planned to file a motion for a new trial Tuesday, but he does not plan to serve as Senior’s attorney during the appeals process.
Second homicide
Columbus police allege Harris was the second man Senior shot dead here in August 2017.
On Aug. 20, two days before Harris was killed, 25-year-old Nathan Johnson fatally was shot outside a home in the 2200 block of Eighth Street.
Investigators said Johnson was there playing cards with several others when Senior forced his way in and started a dispute. Senior left, but began calling and texting Johnson to come outside, they said.
Senior shot Johnson when Johnson stepped out onto the front porch, officers said. Police were called there at 9:34 p.m., and Johnson was pronounced dead at 10:01 p.m. at the hospital.
In Johnson’s death, Senior is charged with murder, using a gun to commit a crime and being a convicted felon with a firearm. He has yet to go to trial in that case.
This story was originally published June 28, 2021 at 4:20 PM.