Two McDonough men facing the possibility of the death penality for quadruple homicides will likely be represented by a special corps of public defenders who deal exclusively with capital punishment cases.
LEARN MORE: GEORGIA’S DEATH ROW
A hearing earlier this week for Jacob Cole Kosky and Matthew Baker Jr. was postponed to April 11 to allow Baker to find an attorney for what has become a high-profile case. Baker's attorney had withdrawn from the case just before the Henry district attorney Darius Pattillo announced he would be seeking the death penalty.
The pair were indicted in January for shooting to death three people at a home in a rural stretch of Henry County. A fourth later died at the hospital.
Kosky, 23, was indicted on four counts of malice murder, eight counts of felony murder, four counts of aggravated assault, one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and one count of felony theft by taking.
Baker, 19, was indicted on four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, four counts of aggravated assault, and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Tuesday Kosky was represented in court by attorneys Brad Gardner and Emily Gilbert who are with the Georgia Capital Defender, a division of the Georgia Public Defender Council. Gardner declined to comment Wednesday.
Baker reportedly will be represented by attorneys from the Conflict Defenders division, which is generally called in when a death penalty case has more than one defendant.
Both offices work with defendants who can’t afford private attorneys who specialize in death penalty cases, which can run into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.
The Capital Defender division was formed in 2005 soon after Georgia went to a statewide indigent defense system. Before that, local counties appointed private attorneys to take cases for people who couldn’t afford an attorney. Those attorneys were paid out of county funds.
The Conflict Defender division was later added as metro Atlanta began seeing more capital cases with multiple defendants.
The gruesomeness of the killings prompted Patillo to seek the death penalty.
On Oct. 26, Kosky and Baker attended a bonfire gathering at a home on Mocassin Gap Rd. in south Henry County.
The pair left the home at one point during the party. They returned and Kosky, who has admitted to police he was the shooter, began firing. Four people were shot.
Kosky's sister, who attended the party, hid when the shooting began and called 911 once the shooting stopped, later told police that she recognized the gunman's voice as her brother. The gun used in the shooting was later found near a bridge in nearby Newton County. Kosky, who turned himself in, admitted to police he was the shooter, police said.
According to the criminal warrant obtained from the Henry County Police by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kosky was identified as the shooter while Baker is said to have aided and abetted Kosky by giving him the gun used in the crime and then helping him leave the scene. The warrant noted that Kosky went to the house with the “intent to then and there rob and murder.”
Three were found dead inside the home in the early hours of Oct. 27. The dead were identified as Matthew Hicks, 18, of McDonough; Keith Gibson, 29, of Covington and Sophia Bullard, 20, of Thomaston. The victims were shot in the head, according to the criminal warrant. The fourth victim, 20-year-old Destiny Olinger, was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital where she died two days later. The shooting occurred at the home of Olinger’s grandparents.
Three other people at the party - Jacob Williams, 18, of McDonough, Kayla Head, 21, of McDonough and Brooke Knight, 19, of Locust Grove - were charged with misdemeanor obstruction for not cooperating with police.
Kosky and Baker remain in the Henry County jail.
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