He’s accused of killing 2 store clerks. His murder trial will be Macon’s 1st in a year
The killings of two convenience store clerks a week apart in 2018 were among Macon’s most senseless, high-profile violent crimes in recent memory.
One of the teenagers accused in those alleged robberies-turned-murders is set to go on trial Monday.
Jeremy Jerome Kendrick Jr., who was 17 at the time of the stickups, will be the first murder suspect to go on trial in Bibb County in nearly 15 months.
The trial, the county’s first in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, comes as prosecutors and defense teams alike begin handling a daunting backlog of cases that only grew larger amid record-breaking violence here during the 2020 shutdown.
Courthouse officials plan to take extra health precautions in the courtroom during Kendrick’s trial, beginning with jury selection in the case on Monday.
Panels of prospective jurors will gather in smaller groups and those selected will be socially-distanced in the jury box at trial, with about half seated outside the box. They will also wear see-through masks supplied by the county so their faces are not as obscured as they are with typical face coverings.
The case will also mark the Macon courtroom return of former District Attorney Greg Winters, who after nearly a decade as a prosecutor in Houston County is back in Bibb as an assistant DA.
Kendrick, who turns 20 in mid-May, is represented by lawyer Floyd M. Buford Jr., who was one of the attorneys for Stephen McDaniel in the Lauren Giddings murder case, which Winters oversaw the early stages of as DA here.
Kendrick is one of two men accused in the pair of convenience-mart clerk slayings. A third man has been charged in connection with the second clerk’s death. Each defendant will be tried separately.
Two killings, a week apart
The killings, a week apart in mid-August 2018, happened as one store was opening and the other was closing.
The first victim, Alpeshkumar Prajapati, 36, was shot in the upper right side of his back as he was starting the day on Aug. 14 at the Gulf Food Mart at the corner of Napier Avenue and Bartlett Street.
“He worked at other places and nothing happened because he was nice, but that doesn’t stop people from being evil,” a co-worker of Prajapati’s said at the time. “He was nice toward everyone. You could be a nun or a priest working back there, and they’ll still rob you.”
Parts of the robbery were recorded by security cameras in the store, but as police searched for the suspects, prosecutors allege, the bandits struck again eight days later.
The second holdup came outside a tiny store called Market Place #5 at the corner of Vineville and Holt avenues the night of Aug. 22.
A 21-year-old clerk, Waqar Ali, was shot in the center of his chest as he appeared to be leaving for the night.
Sheriff’s investigators were tipped off in the following days by a confidential informant who said Kendrick and 16-year-old Arie Jimmelle Calloway were involved in Ali’s death, according to testimony at a hearing soon after their arrests.
During the hearing, an investigator said Calloway had confessed to the killings and implicated Kendrick.
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.
This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.