DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said Wednesday he will seek the death penalty against a gang member charged with murdering a 9-month-old boy during a home invasion that was part of a string of shootings last May.
Two men were charged with killing KenDarious Edwards and critically wounding the baby’s mother, grandmother and a family friend, but only one of them, 18-year-old Devin Thomas, is facing the possibility of a death sentence if he is convicted of murder.
“Because of the egregious nature of this senseless crime, my office had no choice but to seek the death penalty regarding the death of an innocent baby,” DA Robert James said in a statement. “This meaningless act ended the life of an innocent child.”
Georgia law requires that notice be given if the death penalty is being sought and the aggravating circumstances that support it documented. In a court filing, James wrote that Thomas deserved the death penalty because he was allegedly committing a burglary and an aggravated battery at the time and the crime was “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhumane in that it involved depravity of mind.”
James will be asking for life without parole if a jury convicts the second man charged with killing the baby, 36-year-old fellow gang member Marco Watson. Watson is being held in the DeKalb County Jail on eight felony charges, including murder, aggravated assault and violating the state’s anti-gang law.
According to police, the two members of the Bloods street gang opened fire on three unarmed women and the baby after kicking in the front door of a house on To Lani Farm Road near Stone Mountain on May 10.
James said Watson and Thomas targeted the family members of fellow Blood gang member Oslushla Smith just days after Smith allegedly killed Thomas’ friend, Alexis Malone. The baby was Smith’s nephew.
Police suspect Malone was killed because she was a witness to the May 3 fatal shooting of 29-year-old Michael Phillips at a party.
When Thomas and Watson were charged in June, both men were already in jail on unrelated cases; Watson for violating probation and Thomas on a charge of making a false statement.
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