Shots from one gun killed two Columbus teens in alleged gang slaying. Who fired it?
Amid a fusillade fired at four Columbus teens in a car during an alleged street gang assault, only two or three shots were fatal.
Those bullets came from the same gun, a rifle that left 27 cartridge casings at the shooting scene on Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street on June 14, 2021.
All were from 7.62-millimeter rounds, according to state firearms expert Catherine Jordan.
More details of the shooting came out last Thursday as the prosecution’s case wound down. And with no court on Friday due to the Veterans Day holiday, closing arguments are set for 9 a.m. Monday in Judge Gil McBride’s Government Center courtroom.
In testimony Thursday by medical examiner Ste en Atkinson, he said one bullet went through driver Jesse Ransom’s chest ,causing massive bleeding. Police found Ransom, 17, dead on the roadside.
One or two more hit the passenger behind Ransom in the forehead, Atkinson said, explaining a single shot could have caused those wounds. That victim was Saiveon Pugh, 18, found unconscious in the back seat and pronounced dead at the hospital.
Other casings police recovered came from two more firearms: a rifle firing .223-caliber bullets, and a third firearm that shot 9-millimeter rounds, Jordan testified Thursday in the murder trial of three alleged gangsters charged in the shooting.
Police said up to 60 shots were fired at the Dodge Dart in which the teens were riding. Two survivors, both on the passenger side, were shot in the back. Front-seat passenger Ta’Journey Lee. 16, was hit once, and behind him Wandray Harris, 19, was shot three times.
That pattern is consistent with gunmen raking the driver’s side with bullets and continuing to shoot at the Dodge from behind as it crashed into a parked car, police said.
The lead detective on the case, Sgt. Kyle Tuggle, testified surveillance video recorded two men there with rifles, before the shooting. One was Homer Upshaw, who’s among the three men on trial. The other was never identified, Tuggle said.
Trial nears end
Tuggle, Jordan and Atkinson were the trial’s last witnesses, as gang prosecutors for the state attorney general’s office rested their case Thursday. The defense attorneys called no witnesses, and their clients declined to testify.
On Monday, three defense attorneys each will be allowed to argue once and prosecutors will be given two chances to address the jury.
Homer Upshaw, 28, is represented by attorney William Kendrick. The other defendants are his brother Terrance Upshaw, 31, represented by Shevon Thomas II, and Rodderick Glanton, 28, represented by Allen C. Jones.
Gang prosecutors Cara Convery and T. McKenzie Gray allege all three were in the Marlow gang, a local, “hybrid” street gang affiliated with a larger group called US World.
The teens in the car were with the Zohannon gang, police said. The Zohannons and US World had a gang war in 2021, boosting the city’s homicide total that year to 70 deaths.
The trio on trial have not denied shooting the teens, but claim self-defense, arguing the victims were targeting them for a drive-by shooting, and they fired first to protect themselves.
Pugh was found with his hands on an AK-47-style rifle loaded with 24 bullets, all .22-caliber. Lee admitted he had a 9-millimeter pistol, though that gun was never found. Harris and Ransom both were wearing masks.
They drove four times past the Seventh Avenue house the suspects were in before the gunmen came out and opened fire, afterward fleeing in a rental car, police said.
The Seventh Avenue house is across the street from Columbus’ Wilson Homes apartments, where security cameras captured the 10 p.m. shooting. Investigators said the Marlows had established a “stronghold” there, using the Seventh Avenue house and a second house across 32nd Street to sell drugs.
Police seized more than 20 pounds of marijuana during the investigation: Five pounds at the 32nd Street house and 15.4 pounds at a Third Avenue home where Homer Upshaw’s girlfriend lived. He told police that marijuana belonged to him, Tuggle said.
Besides murder, a 21-count indictment charges the trio with aggravated assault, criminal damage to property, possessing guns while committing felonies, and violating Georgia’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
They face life in prison if convicted.