‘Just words.’ Insult triggered deadly shooting at July 4th cookout, prosecutor says
Gunfire at an Independence Day cookout two and a half years ago was triggered by a vulgar, off-the-cuff insult, one that prompted one man shoot another to death and walk away “like he didn’t care,” as one witness described it Tuesday at the alleged killer’s murder trial.
The accused gunman, Tyrell Javon Jackson, faces murder charges in the July 4, 2017, slaying of Kelvin Willis during an apparent spur-of-the-moment confrontation at a holiday gathering in south Macon’s Pendleton Homes neighborhood.
Willis, who was 39, died after being shot twice.
Jackson, who turns 28 this month, was months later identified by others at the cookout as the shooter, Bibb County prosecutors said Tuesday during the first day of testimony in the case.
Prosecutor Kyle Owenby in his opening statement to jurors said Willis and Jackson had been cracking jokes on one another, cutting up and drinking.
Willis, who lived nearby in the Houston Avenue housing projects, was a close friend of the man hosting the barbecue. The host also knew Jackson, a tattoo artist from the city’s southwest side who had done tattoo work for him and his kin.
At some point shortly before midnight, the host, Troy Davis, said the pair were talking trash to each other and that Jackson, out of the blue, shot Willis dead, according to police.
Owenby, the assistant district attorney, described the episode, telling jurors, “They’re saying things to each other that, well, you wouldn’t say in church. ... And, well, the defendant, he gets his feelings hurt because Kelvin Willis tells him, ‘Suck my (expletive).’
“And how does the defendant respond to that? Well, he shoots Kelvin Willis dead because he didn’t like the words that were said to him. Kelvin Willis wasn’t hurting anybody. He wasn’t threatening anybody. Just words.”
Jackson’s lawyer told the jury that his client wasn’t there that night and that the witnesses didn’t tell cops that Jackson as the culprit until the following April.
The host of the cookout, Davis, 40, said the get-together on the Fourth had been “fun for a little while.”
He said he and some relatives had gone to Lake Tobesofkee earlier that night for the fireworks show. Then they returned home to grill out, shoot off their own fireworks and party.
Davis said Jackson dropped by and at some point exchanged words with Willis.
“It was just a small argument about nothing,” Davis said.
Davis said Jackson shot Willis and that after he did, Davis asked Jackson what was going on?
“He kept walking ... like he didn’t care,” Davis said.
Testimony was expected to resume Wednesday.