Ezekiel Kelly, the man police say shot people at random, enters not guilty plea
The man police say drove around Memphis shooting random people and streaming some of it on Facebook Live entered a not guilty plea Tuesday to three counts of first-degree murder and 23 other charges.
The court appearance was the first for Ezekiel Kelly, 19, since he was charged with multiple crimes related to what police described as a shootings spree that locked down Memphis for hours in early September. After initially being charged with one count of murder, a grand jury on Sept. 28 expanded the case.
The indictment was handed down about three weeks after Kelly was arrested and charged with a single count of first-degree murder in the killing of Dewayne Tunstall, who police say was the first victim in the spree. The additional charges include two more counts of first-degree murder that stem from the deaths of Richard Clark and Allison Parker, along with terrorism and carjacking.
That first-degree murder charge related to Tunstall's death and 26-count indictment are currently filed separately, but Assistant District Attorney Chris Lareau said the prosecution is likely to file a motion to merge the two down the line. However, as for the timeline, Lareau is not sure when Kelly will stand before a jury.
"We have a new vertical prosecution model here in Shelby County," he said. "I've gotten a case to a jury in about 90 days from the date that a man stabbed a woman in the stomach with a machete. That's the quickest I've ever seen an attempted murder, or a murder case, get in front of a jury. I don't expect that sort of a timetable here."
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy attributed the potentially long timetable to the complexity of the case and intensity of the upcoming discovery process.
"Given the complexity of the case, multiple crime scenes, multiple victims, there's going to be a lot of discovery that will take place. The discovery process alone will probably take multiple months," Mulroy said. "So it's going to be a while before we get to trial in this case."
Kelly, however, will next be in court November 8.
Mulroy, who has been in office for just over a month, said it was "way too early" to say whether or not prosecutors will seek the death penalty in this case, but he noted the rarity of a case like this.
"This is a pretty extraordinary case," he said. "I would say that this is a once-in-a-quarter-century case. It's a highly unusual situation. Of course, I haven't seen much because I've only been on the job for one month, but I think it's been a long time since we've seen anything like this in Shelby County."
Police arrested Kelly on Sept. 7 after investigators said he killed three people and injured three more in a shooting spree that stretched across the city. As police searched for the shooter, MATA buses suspended services, traffic was stopped in parts of the city and police advised residents to stay indoors.
Lucas Finton is a news reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: The man police say went on a shooting spree pleads not guilty
