Columbus jury reaches verdict in trial of man charged with killing father, 3-year-old
A Columbus jury found Antonio Bernard “Tony” Willis not guilty of murder Friday in the fatal shootings of a father and his 3-year-old son.
Jurors found Willis guilty only of attempting to commit the felony of armed robbery. For that, the 42-year-old faces a sentence of one to 30 years in prison, prosecutors said.
The jury deliberated about three hours before acquitting him on two counts of murder and one of aggravated assault.
Superior Court Judge Gil McBride set his sentencing for 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 4. He already has spent more than 1,300 days in jail, since his arrest in May 2019, and will get credit for the time served, when he’s sentenced.
The verdict was a victory for his public defender, Bentley Adams IV, in the 35-year-old’s first major trial as lead defense attorney. Adams afterward said he felt the jury’s decision was fair: “I think it represented the evidence,” he said.
The victims’ family sat through each day of of the weeklong trial, and some were brought to tears as the verdict was announced.
Missing evidence
In his closing argument Friday morning, Adams took just 15 minutes to outline the evidence prosecutors did not have against his client in the fatal shootings of 41-year-old Joseph “Jo Jo” Banks and son Jacaiden Banks on Nov. 27, 2018, outside a vacant house at 6 Stuart Drive:
They did not have the 9-millimeter pistol that was used to shoot the two. They did not have any DNA evidence tying Willis to the homicides. They did not have an eyewitness to identify Willis as the killer.
Remember those three, Adams told jurors: no gun, no DNA, no identification.
He showed them a list of five names he said were potential suspects in the case, arguing police so focused on Willis that they never followed up on other leads.
He suggested one of them, Willis’ cousin, was better positioned to commit the crime because he worked at the Foxy Lady Lounge on Victory Drive, conveniently close to the shooting scene.
He noted also that a neighbor living near Stuart Drive testified to hearing multiple gunshots and three vehicles that night, indicating others were involved. “She heard three engines, one truck, two cars,” he said.
Prosecutors had no definitive evidence proving Willis fired the fatal shots, he said: “The state’s case is highly circumstantial.”
When Adams finished, Assistant District Attorney Robin Anthony laid out the circumstantial evidence she said would prove Willis’ guilt, starting with his “desperate” situation, in the fall of 2018:
Willis and his girlfriend were homeless, having been living in Atlanta shelters. The state had taken custody of their 3-year-old daughter. They came to Columbus when his mother got sick and died in October. He worked for an aunt until she kicked him out, and other relatives shunned him.
“My family treated me like dog [expletive],” he later told a detective.
He had to beg for money so he and his girlfriend could get a room at the Colony Inn, 4300 Victory Drive, where Banks also was living. When Willis checked in, he listed his address as Lanier Drive, his mother’s home. It’s just a few blocks from Stuart Drive.
He was at the motel about two months before his girlfriend moved back to Atlanta. “He had nothing left,” Anthony told jurors.
All he had was a friend, Jo Jo Banks, who let Willis move into his motel room, where Banks’ young son also stayed. Willis stayed with them for two weeks, before the homicides.
Prosecutor’s argument
On Nov. 26, 2018, neighbors at the Colony Inn heard Willis trying to get Banks to go to Stuart Drive to “make a lick,” street lingo for committing a robbery. Banks refused, saying he had to look out for his son, the witnesses testified.
At 1:08 the next morning, Banks borrowed a friend’s Ford F-150, so he, Willis and the boy could go buy food. Surveillance video showed them leaving, with Banks driving, Willis on the passenger’s side and the boy seated between them.
At 3:28 a.m., a woman living on Infantry Drive, close to Stuart Drive in the Benning Hills area, heard a series of gunshots, she testified. She also heard a pickup truck idling before it pulled away, and two cars also leaving, she said.
Around 4:30 a.m., surveillance video recorded Willis arriving at Groome Transportation, 2800 Harley Court, where he was wearing different clothes than he wore at the Colony Inn. Booking his ticket with a cousin’s name, he caught a 4:45 a.m. shuttle to Atlanta, arriving before daylight.
At 8:37 a.m., passersby found the bodies on Stuart Drive, the father on one side of the driveway, the son on the other. The father had been shot seven times, with one shot through his head as he lay on the ground, the bullet embedding in the dirt beneath. The boy had been shot through the back of the head.
Anthony said gunshot residue on the child’s hands showed he had them over his ears, when he was hit, covering his head as he sat in the truck, where the gunman on the passenger’s side was shooting his father as the driver’s side door opened and blood splattered against it.
The truck, with the driver’s side window shot out and six 9-millimeter bullet casings inside it, all from the same gun, was found behind a vacant house at 1032 Henry Ave.
Willis remained free in Atlanta until U.S. Marshals captured him in May 2019. Twice that month Detective Robert Nicholas questioned him, on May 5 and May 20, videotaping the interviews Anthony showed to the jury.
What Willis told Nicholas incriminated him, Anthony argued:
He denied having changed clothes, though surveillance videos at Groome and the Colony Inn showed he had. He first claimed to have walked to Groome from Victory Drive, a distance of 13 miles, though he told Nicholas he was chronically weak from a heart condition and other ailments. Later he said he caught a ride.
He said he was familiar with the house on Henry Avenue, where the truck was found, because an uncle once used it as a “party house.” That house is about a block from a home on Hood Street where his cousins lived, Anthony said.
The evidence points to this scenario, Anthony argued: Willis was destitute and desperate to get to Atlanta to rejoin his girlfriend. He went to Banks to ask for money and a ride, then lured Banks to Stuart Drive and started shooting as Banks tried to get out of the driver’s side. He killed the child to leave no witness who could identify him, the prosecutor said.
Then he drove the truck to Henry Avenue to hide it, and walked from there to his cousin’s home on Hood Street, changing clothes and waiting until his cousin got off work at the Foxy Lady Lounge to drive him to Groome, where he showed up with a backpack containing the pistol and the loot he took from Banks, Anthony said. He booked his trip under another name, and left town, she said.
“All this happens before the bodies are ever found,” she told the jury.
This story was originally published December 9, 2022 at 4:50 PM.