Fort Mitchell man gunned down in dispute with niece’s lover, Russell sheriff says
A Fort Mitchell man was fatally shot outside his home Tuesday during a dispute over two teen lovers and their newborn baby, authorities said.
Dwight Carlton Jones, 46, was gunned down as he tried to go back into his Apache Trail home during a confrontation with 19-year-old Kahmahli Kenyattah Jones, said Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor. The suspect is in a relationship with Dwight Jones’ niece, Taylor said.
Though they share the same surname, the two men are not related, the sheriff said.
He said the teen and the victim’s niece, Goldyn Snead, also 19, had a baby born two days earlier, and Kahmahli Jones got a ride to the Apache Trail residence to see the mother and child, over Dwight Jones’ objections.
The niece lived with Dwight Jones, who had told Kahmahli Jones to say away from the house after an earlier incident in which the boyfriend allegedly fired a gun into the niece’s car, the sheriff said.
When Kahmahli Jones showed up Tuesday morning, Dwight Jones ordered him to leave, and did not let him see his girlfriend or the child, Taylor said.
The teen pulled out a 9-millimeter pistol and fired more than 10 shots, hitting his girlfriend’s uncle and the house, the sheriff said. Dwight Jones died from a shot to the chest, he said.
Russell County deputies responding to reports of gunfire at 8:42 a.m. found witnesses performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation to try to keep Dwight Jones alive, Taylor said. The deputies were told Kahmahli Jones had walked away wearing a puffy black jacket over a hooded sweatshirt.
The suspect was found at 9:04 a.m. about a half-mile away, at Moss Oak Drive and Musclewood Drive, the sheriff said. He was wearing the clothes witnesses had described, but he did not have the 9-millimeter pistol, which investigators still were searching for Tuesday afternoon, Taylor said.
The teen is jailed on charges of murder and firing a gun into an occupied dwelling, he said.
Investigators said the two teenagers had been together for about a year, but apparently had a rocky relationship, as deputies had been called to previous disputes involving the pair.
Dwight Jones was trying to put an end to that, Taylor said.
“He had advised Kahmahli to not show up at his residence, in the past, because they have had some arguments and some issues between his niece and him, and so he was trying to keep them separate,” the sheriff said.
This story was originally published December 12, 2023 at 4:52 PM.