The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Juries to hear 4 cases of murder this week
Four murder cases are expected to go to trial in Gwinnett County this week, according to the district attorney’s office.
The deaths in these cases occurred as recently as 2016 and as long ago as 2004. The youngest defendant, Quintavious Kerry Walker, is 19, and the oldest, Kelvin Odom, is
56. Jury selection began for these cases on Monday morning, and opening statements are expected to begin today.
Here are some details about the four cases from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s previous reporting:
■ Quintavious Kerry Walker, charged with two counts of felony murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
Police found the bodies of 18-year-old Jaquille Thomas and 19-year-old Angelique Bowman in a Norcross subdivision in January 2016. A month later, Quintavious Kerry Walker, then 17, was charged with murder and aggravated assault in connection with their deaths.
Walker told police that he had met up with Thomas in a car at the subdivision to make a gun sale. Bowman, Thomas’ girlfriend, sat in the back seat, according to police.
Thomas threatened Walker with a gun, so Walker shot him. Walker shot Bowman shortly after because she was screaming, according to police.
■ Kelvin Odom, charged with three counts of felony murder and one count each of aggravated battery, aggravated assault and cruelty to children in the first degree.
Kelvin Odom called 911 on Sept. 2, 2015, saying his 10-week-old son was not breathing. When paramedics arrived, they saw the boy “had resumed breathing” and “appeared normal,” according to police. They still offered to take the baby to the hospital, but Odom, 53, declined, police said.
Three hours later, the baby’s mother came home to the Lawrenceville apartment and saw he was having trouble breathing and looked discolored. Odom told the mother that the baby had “fallen off the couch and landed on the floor,” according to police. The couple started to drive the child to the hospital, but then pulled over and called 911 for an ambulance.
Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta found the boy had a fractured skull and closed head trauma. He died four days later.
Gwinnett County police charged Odom with beating the child and causing the fractured skull and his death.
■ Altora Jabbar Roane, charged with two counts of felony murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and one count each of aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit armed robbery.
On Nov. 18, 2007, Alfredo Espinal Sr. and his 17-year-old son were working at their family auto body shop on West Main Street in Snellville. A man in dark clothes wearing a “Scream” mask walked in with a handgun, demanding money, according to Snellville police.
Espinal refused to give the masked man any money, and the man shot Espinal in the head before fleeing. The police K9 unit located a suspect’s sweatshirt, gloves and mask shortly after the crime, and they were sent to the GBI crime lab for DNA analysis. A mixture of two men’s DNA was found, but in 2007, the lab didn’t have technology to separate them or provide a match, according to police.
Police identified Altora Jabbar Roane as a possible suspect after learning he was a suspect in a robbery in which a Scream mask was worn. Roane also lived near the auto body shop, police said. A search warrant was acquired for a DNA swab.
Roane was convicted of the robbery involving the Scream mask, sentenced to 25 years in prison. Later, a private lab tested Roane’s DNA against that found on the Scream mask associated with Espinal’s killing, and found a match, police said.
Roane was charged in 2013.
■ Herminio Reyes, charged with murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.
Sadot Orzuna-Carmona was found dead, stabbed in the neck, in her Norcross apartment on Aug. 1, 2004.
The night before, witnesses told police they saw Orzuna-Carmona and her boyfriend, Herminio Reyes, arguing at Orzuna-Carmona’s birthday party.
Reyes was initially the primary suspect in Orzuna-Carmona’s death, but was not arrested until January 2017, more than 12 years after the killing.