Jude Walton was standing on the porch of her friend’s home very early Oct. 27 when she heard gunshots and a man’s voice ordering everyone inside to “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!”
Walton ran and hid in a shed. She later called 911. When police arrived, she told them she recognized the gunman’s voice.
It was, she said, her brother, Jacob Cole Kosky.
Kosky would turn himself in to police later that day. Henry detective David LeCroy testified Monday that Kosky told investigators, “I domed everybody in the house. Two to the head. Everybody I saw, I did it … If I saw them, I killed them.”
No motive was given for the shootings. Kosky, 22, remains held without bond in the Henry County jail following Monday’s preliminary hearing along with co-defendant Matthew Baker Jr., 19. Baker’s hearing was reset for Dec. 7.
A trial date has not been set. He faces four counts of murder, four counts of aggravated assault, one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Baker also faces four counts of murder and four counts of aggravated assault, for allegedly aiding and abetting Kosky during the crime.
Kosky, 22, appeared in court with his court-appointed attorney Jennifer Lewis. The case was bound over to Superior Court.
Details of the quadruple shooting emerged Monday. Kosky, a McDonough resident who has had numerous run-ins with local authorities, appeared before Magistrate Judge Robert Godwin. The courtroom was packed with about three dozen family and friends of the four killed. Many clutched tissue handed out by courtroom personnel.
LeCroy described in detail the scene authorities found at the home on Moccasin Gap Road near McDonough. Three were found face-down dead in the dining room. A fourth was airlifted to a hospital where she later died.
During Monday’s 11-minute hearing, Kosky sat shackled and dressed in a dark-green jail jumpsuit. Surrounded by sheriff’s deputies, he looked up at the ceiling from time to time. Just before being escorted out of the courtroom, Kosky turned and faced the gallery then turned back around.
Police arrived at the home sometime after 2 a.m. that Thursday morning when 911 was alerted to a possible home invasion by a woman LeCroy identified Monday as Kosky’s sister.
Another witness, Dalton Wynn, also identified Kosky as the shooter, LeCroy said.
Wynn was in a bedroom asleep when he was awakened by gunshots and screaming, LeCroy said. Wynn, who hid under the covers, told investigators he peeked through a hole in the blanket and he saw two people coming down the hallway. One was a “white male with tattoos on his face” and the other looked like he had a mask on, LeCroy said. Wynn later identified Kosky in a photo lineup as the guy he saw in the hallway.
Police found Matthew Hicks, 18, of McDonough, Keith Gibson, 29, of Covington and Sophia Bullard, 20, of Thomaston already dead. Hicks and Gibson each had been shot in the head and the back while Bullard suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
The fourth victim, Destiny Olinger - also in her 20’s - was airlifted in critical condition with two gunshot wounds to the head to Grady Memorial Hospital where she later died. Olinger lived at the home with her grandparents.
The shooting occurred after a group of friends had gathered for a bonfire.
The two weapons - a 38-caliber revolver and a 44-special- revolver - used in the shooting were taken from the top of the refrigerators in the owner's home, LeCroy told the court. The guns were later recovered near a bridge in Newton County where Kosky said they would be.
Kosky told investigators he only knew one of the victims by name: Destiny Olinger, according to LeCroy.
At one point Kosky interrupted LeCroy in an outburst refuting the detective’s statement about Baker being at the house with him.
“I didn’t say that,” Kosky yelled out. His attorney had to quiet him.
In addition to the two murder suspects, three other people were charged with obstructing the police investigation. They were Kayla Head, 21, of McDonough; Brooke Knight, 19 and Jacob Tillman Williams, 18, both of Locust Grove.
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