A DeKalb County judge Wednesday denied bond to a man charged with murdering a mother of three children in a retaliation shooting.
Raymond Guyla Jenkins, 27, is the third man arrested in the August shooting death of Alicia Monique Hodges in Lithonia. He and two other men also charged in the case appear to be members of the Bloods street gang, prosecutor Tamara Ross told the court. Aaron Fields and Derrelle Cartaz Williams were arrested Oct. 3. Jenkins was arrested Oct. 8.
Hodges, 35, moved from Minnesota to Georgia with her three children for a better life, her mother, Trina Murray, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday. In Minnesota, Hodges worked with mentally and developmentally disabled people, she said. In metro Atlanta, she worked two jobs while going to culinary school, Murray said.
“She was here a year and 14 days before she was murdered,” she said. “She had friends across nationalities. She even encouraged people who were doing the wrong things to do right. We had to have two funerals, one in Georgia and one in Minnesota because she had touched so many people.”
Ross told Superior Court Judge Daniel Coursey that witnesses to the shooting said they had been intimidated by associates of the three men.
In asking for a $50,000 bond, attorney Leslie Cardin said Jenkins regularly attended and volunteered at a Baptist church in College Park, was enrolled at Georgia Perimeter College, and was looking for work at the time of the shooting.
“We hear often about gang affiliations,” Cardin said, “but I’m not aware of any evidence Mr. Jenkins has threatened anyone.”
Jenkins was already on five years probation for possession of methamphetamine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in Clayton County when the Aug. 2 shooting occurred outside a home on Davidson Drive, Ross said.
Williams was on probation after serving one year of a 10-year prison sentence for armed robbery and aggravated assault. He was previously denied bond.
Fields had his bond hearing postponed Wednesday.
Fields had an argument at the house, which may have been operating as an illegal strip club, and he and Williams were told to leave, Ross said.
He later gave detectives a statement that he and Williams felt “disrespected,” Ross said. Angry, Fields and Williams returned to the house with guns and Jenkins, she said.
Hodges, who had gone to an after-hours party at the home to unwind after work, had just stepped outside when the suspects allegedly fired shots into the house, authorities said. A bullet struck Hodges in the neck. She appeared to have been an “innocent” victim, Ross said.
“She was just going to have a drink and go home,” Murray said in a telephone interview with The AJC. “The bullet hit her in the neck and came out of the side of her head.”
Her three children were ages 9, 10 and 15, and are now scattered across the country, Murray said.
She said the oldest child now lives with her and the two younger ones with Hodges’ grandparents in Minnesota.
“I just got custody of the oldest yesterday,” Murray said. “She really wants to know what happened with her mom and why.”
