Accused triple killer who shot at Mercer students pleads guilty to Macon crime spree

Quentin James “Tuff” Sanders, accused of killing three people in two Middle Georgia counties this year, pleaded guilty Friday to one of the slayings and a pair of attacks involving students at the edge of Mercer University’s campus.

Sanders, 42, was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years, which means he will be 92 years old before he is eligible for parole.

He was released from prison last September and is said to have embarked on a crime spree early this year, “spreading his mayhem,” as one law enforcement official described it at the time.

Prosecutor John Regan on Friday referred to Sanders as “a one-man crime wave” who “had this town in fear for several days.”

As Sanders stood before Judge Howard Z. Simms in Bibb County Superior Court and pleaded guilty to murdering 49-year-old Ida Mae Ford, the judge told Sanders, “In all likelihood, you’re gonna die in the penitentiary.”

Ford, Macon’s first homicide victim of 2018, was found dead the night of Jan. 8 near Winship Street in a neighborhood not far from Mercer and Interstate 75.

Sanders is also accused of killing a Macon County woman and her son, but murder charges are still pending there.

In court Friday, he also pleaded guilty to kidnapping and armed robbery in a Jan. 10 attack on a Mercer student who was held up in a bathroom at Tattnall Square Park adjacent to the college campus.

He also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for firing shots hours later at four Mercer students near Coleman Avenue and Mercer Village along the north side of campus. Sanders, who was also charged with armed robbery in connection with a Macon carjacking two days after that, pleaded guilty to that crime as well.

The judge asked Sanders what compelled him to resort to such violence.

“Can you tell me why?” Simms asked. “I’ve asked that question ... it seems like a thousand times. And I’ve never gotten a good answer.”

“I just made a lot of bad choices,” Sanders replied. “It was a point in my life that, at that time, I just didn’t care about anything.”

He said there “wasn’t a very good reason at all” and apologized to the victims, adding that he confessed to the Bibb County crimes after his arrest in the Macon County slayings because “afterwards I just knew that it wasn’t me.”

This story was originally published August 24, 2018 at 10:35 AM.