‘A lot of twists and turns’ as case closes in Columbus fatal fight over kids playing in street

A court saga that began with a fatal dispute over kids playing basketball on a Columbus street twisted and turned through four different district attorneys in three years before a special prosecutor closed the case Thursday with a plea deal.

It started Feb. 13, 2020, when the basketball players blocked the road on Charter Oaks Circle as Danny Jones tried to get to his late mother’s home on Wimbish Court, about a block away. He berated the children, one of whom reported this to her older siblings, half-brothers Darnel Lamar Piett and Cadirus Latrell Walker, who tracked Jones’ down and confronted him.

The fight that followed left the 62-year-old Jones paralyzed, before he had a stroke, dying in intensive care a week later. His homicide led to a range of charges that changed, over time, and to the victim’s family complaining they were mistreated by then-District Attorney Mark Jones.

Their complaint became evidence in the prosecutor’s 2021 trial for official misconduct. Accused of violating his oath of office, among other felonies, Jones pleaded guilty in November 2021 and served a year in prison.

The case against Mark Jones was resolved long before the one against Piett and Walker, who first were charged with aggravated assault, and then murder, before a grand jury reviewing the evidence in December 2020 indicted the pair on a new set of offenses.

The grand jury indicted Piett for felony involuntary manslaughter, alleging he fatally injured Jones “without any intention to do so,” and for three misdemeanors: two counts of simple battery, and one of criminal trespass.

The grand jury indicted Walker for a single misdemeanor: Making a false statement to police, alleging he “knowingly and willfully” lied to investigators when he told them he knew nothing about Piett’s fight with Jones, and wasn’t there.

Those were the charges the pair faced Thursday as Superior Court Judge Maureen Gottfried considered a plea deal arranged by David Studdard, an outside prosecutor assigned the case when the local district attorney’s office had to bow out.

The sentencing

After negotiating with Piett’s defense attorney William Kendrick, Studdard asked that Piett be sentenced to 10 years, with five to serve in prison and the rest on probation. He would get credit for the time he spent in jail, before his release on bond, about 14 months.

Studdard asked that Walker be sentenced to five years’ probation on his misdemeanor. Walker’s defense attorney Anthony Johnson did not object.

But Kendrick asked Gottfried to sentence Piett to two years, after Piett’s parents testified that what happened was out of character, for their son, and that he never intended to hurt Jones.

Studdard objected, noting the case had a “long and unique procedural history” that made Jones’ family feel they had been victimized twice, first by Danny Jones’ death and then by their issues with the court system. “They are desperate for closure and desperate for justice,” he said.

Gottfried stood by the negotiated plea deal.

“This has been a hard case from the start, a lot of twists and turns,” she said. She could see that Piett had a supportive family, she added. “But the bottom line is there’s a family who has lost a family member, and I know they’re not happy with this recommendation to start with.”

Gottfried noted Piett had assaulted an older man. Piett and Walker both were in their mid-20s when they confronted Jones.

“We have someone who’s in his 60s and is on a porch, and there’s a fight, and someone much younger took action, and you are responsible for your actions, and that cannot be ignored in this case,” she said. “The facts are what the facts are.”

What happened?

Christopher Bailey, Jones’ nephew, said his uncle likely was impatient that day, en route to his late mother’s home, which the family was considering selling a month after her death. His brother Amzy Waylan Jones still was staying there, having lived with their mother. His sister, Lucy Bailey, also was coming, but she was running late.

Kendrick said Piett was asleep when a child woke him to tell him about the angry man in the red pickup who lectured them in the street.

About 5 p.m., the brothers walked up Wimbish Court looking for the red pickup, passing witnesses and Ring cameras on the way. When they found the house, Amzy Waylan Jones answered the door, and a struggle began when Danny Jones stepped between his brother and Piett.

Police and Jones’ family said his spine was fractured when Piett threw him down on the concrete walkway. As he lingered in the hospital on life support, paralyzed from the shoulders down, Jones could only blink to communicate. His nephew said Jones had to blink to tell his family “No” when asked whether he wanted to live that way for the rest of his life.

During a 2020 bond hearing for Piett, sister Lucy Bailey said Jones had two children and a granddaughter, and was close to retiring from TSYS, the credit-card processor based in Columbus.

“I believe he suffered unimaginable pain, fear and anxiety,” she testified at Piett’s 2020 bond hearing. “No one deserves to go through this.”

She spoke again Thursday at the sentencing. “I have forgiven them for what they have done,” she said of Piett and Walker, but added, “Neither one of them had the right to take my brother’s life.”

Because the suspects were Black and the victim white, rumors spread that Jones had used racial slurs, provoking Piett and Walker.

Piett’s mother, Jennifer Anthony, told Gottfried that was not true, and her son had told her so.

Tangled court history

Danny Jones’ autopsy report, dated July 20, 2020, said he died with a fractured spine and a blood clot in his brain, the result of impact trauma from his head hitting concrete.

Detectives got warrants charging Piett and Walker with murder. Walker was jailed on July 29, 2020, and Piett’s charges were upgraded on Aug. 3, according to jail records. Both were held without bond, until their charges changed again.

On Dec. 9, 2020, an assistant district attorney took the case to a Muscogee County grand jury. Based on the evidence, which included eyewitnesses recanting their earlier statements to police, the grand jurors indicted neither suspect for murder, but for the charges they pleaded to Thursday.

On Dec. 11, 2020, Walker was released on bond. Piett remained in jail, on his previous charge of murder. Then a new district attorney took office: Mark Jones defeated incumbent DA Julia Slater in the 2020 elections, and took over on Jan. 4, 2021. He assigned the case to a new prosecutor.

Piett was set for a bond hearing Feb. 16, 2021, but it was canceled. Christopher Bailey said he told a victim’s advocate with the DA’s office that the family wanted to know when it was rescheduled. On March 4, Gottfried cut Piett’s bond, on his new charges, and he was able to get out of jail.

Danny Jones’ family did not learn until March 15 that Piett was being released, despite the Georgia Crime Victims Bill of Rights, which requires notifying victims’ families of changes in a suspect’s status.

When Christopher Bailey filed a court motion alleging violations of that law, it prompted a phone call from Mark Jones, who said he would take the case back to a grand jury for a murder indictment if Bailey withdrew his motion. If Bailey persisted, the DA might have to have the case reassigned, he told Bailey.

Bailey withdrew his motion, but he also recorded the half-hour phone call.

That recording was played in court in November 2021 at Mark Jones’ trial, where Bailey was among the prosecution’s witnesses.

Jones on the call told Bailey that his motion made it look like the family was in conflict with the DA’s office. He could refer the case to a special prosecutor, he said, though he was the best one to handle it.

“I’m the best friend you’ve got, bro’,” he told Bailey. This was the basis for Jones’ being charged with violating his oath of office.

After Mark Jones went to prison, Stacey Jackson was appointed district attorney. Jackson, as a defense attorney in private practice, had represented Walker on his earlier murder charge, so he had a conflict of interest in Danny Jones’ homicide.

As the court process dragged, the penalties Piett and Walker faced seemed to dwindle, said Christopher Bailey. Danny Jones’ family could only wait and watch, until the pleas and sentencing Thursday.

The case began when Julia Slater was district attorney. It lasted through Mark Jones’ 10 months in office, before he was suspended in October 2021 and Sheneka Terry became acting district attorney. It continued through Terry’s brief tenure before Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Jackson district attorney in May 2022.

Standing outside the Government Center Thursday, Bailey tried to sum up all his family had experienced in three years.

“We weren’t happy about the plea deal, not at all,” he said. “We felt like the charge was lower than it should have been. We wanted to see this go to trial, but we’ve had to come to accept that this is the best we’re going to get.”

He added that over time, the family met prosecutors and victim’s advocates who genuinely cared, and tried to help: “The very first hearing we had, we were approached by some victim’s advocates. The kindness that they extended to us, we haven’t forgotten.”

But crime victims sometimes have to stick up for themselves, he said.

“I hope that people know that they’re not alone, that they’re loved, and that they have a right to be their own advocate in their families’ or friends’ search for justice. Don’t be bothered by who you annoy or anger, in searching for justice. Be an irritant if you have to, because if you don’t do this, nobody else is going to do it for you.”