Siblings guilty of murder, conspiracy

Pair facing 25 years to life in gang-linked 2022 Albany murder of bloods member

The prosecutors said Mckenzie and Walker were in Walker’s apartment on Columbia Street when they set the deadly sequence of events in motion.

ALBANY — Two siblings identified as Bloods gang members were convicted in less than three hours Thursday of arranging the 2022 slaying of a fellow Bloods member on Madison Avenue because the victim had outed one of the brothers as a prior Albany police informant.

Jordan Mckenzie, 24, and his brother, Justin Walker, 28, were found guilty of all charges, including second-degree murder and conspiracy, for enlisting a teenage triggerman to shoot 30year-old Christopher Bryant in the head outside a bodega at the corner of Madison Avenue and Grand Street on April 29, 2022 at about 11:45 p.m.

Prosecutors said Bryant earned the wrath of the siblings when he was sharing documents to show that Walker was an Albany police informant and “snitch” in 2015. Assistant District Attorneys Jessica Blain-lewis and Ryan Carty, who started presenting evidence to the jury last week, presented evidence that included surveillance cameras, cellphone technology and text messages between the siblings to establish the case against Mckenzie and Walker.

The prosecutors said Mckenzie and Walker were in Walker’s apartment on Columbia Street when they set the deadly sequence of events in motion. They enlisted Roland Riggins, 17 at the time, to carry out the execution. The siblings, meanwhile, would act as wheelmen to drive Riggins — armed with a .40 caliber handgun — to and from the crime scene. Mckenzie dropped off Riggins, who walked over and gunned down Bryant, ran up Madison Avenue and re-entered Mckenzie’s car. Walker flagged the car down. Riggins got into the vehicle and they fled.

City surveillance cameras caught the movements of the siblings and Riggins, who pleaded guilty last year to seconddegree murder, and awaits sentencing. He was called to testify, but invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and did not implicate either defendant.

The jury, which got the case following the prosecution’s closing argument by Blain-lewis, found the siblings guilty after less than three hours deliberating.

Walker’s attorney, Assistant Alternate Public Defender John Spencer, and Trevor Hannigan, representing Mckenzie, had argued that the prosecution’s case was dependent on the words of jailhouse witnesses whose words should not be trusted.

Sentencing is set for May 21.