Macon man jailed in cousin’s homicide late Saturday was just convicted in a 2019 shooting
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article identified the victim and suspect as brothers. They were cousins.
A 20-year-old Macon man charged with murder in the shooting death of his cousin over the weekend had, less than two months earlier, been convicted in a 2019 shooting, officials said.
Keondre Jonquez Clyde, who turns 21 next week, was jailed late Saturday in the wake of his cousin’s slaying that night at a house at 2917 Gordon St. between Napier and Hillcrest avenues.
Bibb County sheriff’s officials said in a statement that the victim, Clyde’s cousin, Demonta Steve Clyde, 29, was found “suffering from a gunshot wound” shortly after 8 p.m.
Details of what may have led to the killing were not divulged, but Keondre Clyde was taken into custody within a few hours on Bailey Avenue, just south of Napier, and later charged with murder. He was being held without bond Monday at the county jail. According to an arrest warrant, two witnesses and Keondre Clyde’s mother identified him as a suspect.
On Oct. 17, Keondre Clyde pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony for his role in a shooting on Radio Drive in Macon on Dec. 3, 2019. That gunfire happened less than half a mile west of the scene of Saturday night’s fatal shooting.
Prosecutors said that in the 2019 episode, Keondre Clyde and another man opened fire on someone in a car. No one was wounded. Keondre Clyde was jailed later that day and he spent the next two years in the county jail and under house arrest.
At his plea hearing in October, his attorney told the judge that in the Radio Drive incident there “was more going on out there than just randomly shooting at some folks.” The lawyer did not elaborate. Prosecutors agreed to the terms of the negotiated plea.
Keondre Clyde was sentenced as a first offender to 10 years, two of them behind bars, which he had already served, and ordered to avoid possessing or being around firearms.
This story was originally published December 12, 2022 at 10:52 AM.