Six suspects pleaded guilty Monday in a fatal Columbus 2020 home invasion alleged to be a gang-related drug robbery.

All were set to go to trial this week in Muscogee Superior Court, accused of killing Cross Henderson and beating others held at gunpoint while robbing Henderson’s mother, Autumn Lynn Tillery, of money and drugs in her home on Autumn Ridge Drive in the Upatoi area.

Police said that while searching the home afterward, they found an assortment of drugs valued at approximately $1 million, and that Tillery had been the target of an unreported robbery the week before Henderson was shot.

Henderson, 21, was killed on a Saturday night, Jan. 18, 2020. He had guests the robbers pistol-whipped for recognizing them, when the T-shirts the assailants tied around their faces slipped, detectives said.

Video evidence and witnesses’ accounts aided police in catching these suspects:

• Anthony Nathan Foster, 26.

• Trevonius Tyriq Williams, 25.

• Ceuion Marque English. 26.

• Laqwane Demarcus Kindred, 29.

• Mercedes Annmarie Kraft, 21.

• Toni Nicole Toole, 19.

The first to plead Monday were Kraft and Toole, who each pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery, reduced from armed robbery. They entered a “cold plea,” meaning prosecutors agreed to no sentencing recommendation in exchange for their pleas. The maximum sentence for robbery is 20 years in prison.

After Kraft and Toole pleaded guilty, Foster and Kindred also made deals with prosecutors:

Foster pleaded guilty to home invasion, armed robbery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and violating Georgia’s gang terrorism act. He’s to be sentenced to 30 years in prison with 18 to serve and the rest on probation, said Judge John Martin.

Like Kraft and Toole, Kindred pleaded guilty to robbery, reduced from armed robbery. He’s to be sentenced to 15 years in prison with seven to serve and the rest on probation, Martin said.

The next to plead was Williams, the defendant accused of shooting Henderson with a 9-millimeter pistol. He pleaded to murder, home invasion, armed robbery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and violating the gang terrorism act. Martin sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Typically those sentenced to life must serve 30 years before they are eligible for release.

The last to plead was English. He pleaded to home invasion, armed robbery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and violating the gang terrorism act. He accepted a negotiated sentence of 30 years in prison with 20 to serve and the rest on probation.

Kraft, Toole, Foster, Williams and English were charged in the first armed robbery at the Upatoi home.

That was on Jan. 11, 2020.

Then they went back.

The invasion

Police said Henderson and his guests were on a backyard patio when five masked assailants confronted them in what became a six-minute ordeal.

The intruders beat them with gun butts, including an AK-47-style rifle.

They forced everyone into the house, with one gunman separating Henderson from the other victims and marching him to the stairs, police said.

“Give it up!” the robbers shouted.

Henderson ran up the stairs, calling for his mother to call 911, when Williams shot him in the buttocks, authorities said.

According to prosecutors, Williams told Henderson, “Sorry about your a--,” after shooting him, and later bragged about the assault with his cohorts.

As Henderson crawled into his mother’s bedroom, the suspects followed, forcing everyone upstairs, ordering them to lie face down and beating them if they looked up, according to Detective Sherman Hayes’ testimony at the suspects’ preliminary hearing in Columbus Recorder’s Court.

Hayes said Henderson’s mother was escorted into a bathroom where the robbers took marijuana and cash.

Police were called at 12:45 a.m. Henderson was rushed to Piedmont Columbus Regional, where he died from his wound at 2:07 a.m.

The evidence

Detectives checking neighbors’ security cameras saw a white car arrive about an hour before the robbery, then repeatedly come and go on the cul de sac, before five got out and walked to the wood line, Hayes said.

He said some witnesses recognized Foster from Northside High School, where Henderson graduated in 2016, and thought they knew some of his accomplices.

On Foster’s Facebook page, detectives saw others allegedly associated with a homegrown gang called “FNG.” Through photo lineups, witnesses identified Kindred, English, Williams, Kraft and Toole, Hayes said.

On Nov. 22, 2020, police with a SWAT team served search warrants at Foster’s home on Conner Road, where they arrested Foster, Williams and English. They found guns and ammunition, and marijuana packaged as Henderson’s mother had described, Hayes said.

Investigators also raided Kindred’s home on Flat Rock Road, finding more guns, including an AK-47 rifle and a 9-millimeter pistol, the detective said.

Drugs and charges

Officers who searched the Upatoi home said that besides marijuana and methamphetamine, they found prescription drugs, LSD and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Testifying in Columbus Recorder’s Court after Tillery’s arrest on drug charges, then-police agent Ken Culverson gave a list of items he said were scattered throughout the house:

• 5,621 grams of THC oil in mason jars.

• 1,110 grams of loose marijuana.

• 729 grams of THC wax, an extract.

• 654.8 grams of THC butter, in six butter sticks.

• 127.4 grams of THC oil that was not in mason jars.

• 3 grams of THC powder.

• 64 THC vape cartridges.

• 67 marijuana edibles.

• 489 doses of LSD.

• 8.8 grams of methamphetamine.

• 50 Dextroamphetamine pills

• 12 Pregabalin pills.

• 2 Oxycontin pills.

• One Alprazolam pill.

Three of the six suspects were charged with malice or deliberate murder in Henderson’s death: English, Foster and Williams.

All were charged with felony murder for causing Henderson’s death while committing the felony of armed robbery.

The other charges all six faced, before Monday’s guilty pleas, were:

• Home invasion.

• Armed robbery of Tillery.

• Aggravated assault on Cross Henderson.

• Four counts of aggravated assault on each guest.

• Five counts of false imprisonment for Henderson and each guest.

• Violating Georgia’s gang terrorism act though an armed robbery furthering the gang’s interest.