‘I wasn’t there’: Columbus man claims others killed rapper during botched robbery

Of four people charged in the 2019 fatal shooting of Jaylin Jaquan “Bart” Williams, two have pleaded guilty and one goes to trial this week in Muscogee Superior Court.

The fourth will walk free, if he testifies as agreed against Jordan Jamal Seldon, 24, who’s on trial for murder, aggravated assault and using a gun to commit a crime.

That key witness, Christian Desean Patrick, 25, admitted his role in Williams’ Aug. 1 homicide at Williams’ home on Wallace Drive in midtown, where three of the four suspects allegedly tried to rob him, sparking a gunfight that left the 21-year-old aspiring rapper mortally wounded.

During opening statements in a trial expected to last a week, prosecutor Lewis Lamb acknowledged that Patrick will face no prison time.

“There has been a deal made to acquire testimony,” Lamb told jurors, adding he expects Seldon’s attorney Mike Garner to make an issue of that.

Lamb said Patrick, who never shot at Williams, already has spent four years in jail awaiting trial.

Garner did not focus on Patrick’s deal with prosecutors, however, and instead emphasized that his client has an alibi.

“His defense is, ‘I wasn’t there,’” the attorney said.

Police tracked the suspects’ cell phones to prove they were near Williams’ home that night when Williams’ girlfriend called 911 at 10:58 p.m. to report the barrage of gunfire.

Those phone records will show that five minutes later, Seldon’s phone was blocks away, on Avalon Drive off Macon Road, said Garner, who claimed Seldon could not have made it there so quickly from Wallace Drive.

He urged jurors to question the credibility of the codefendants testifying against Seldon.

“Witnesses are people, and people lie,” he said, later adding, “If you participate in a crime, you’re guilty.”

The evidence

Lamb is the district attorney in Americus, Georgia. He was assigned the case because Columbus District Attorney Stacey Jackson once represented Patrick, presenting a conflict of interest.

Lamb said Seldon, Patrick and Gerald Wayne Reed III conspired to rob Williams, meeting on Schatulga Road before driving to Wallace Drive, where a neighbor’s security camera recorded indistinct images of the crime.

It showed Reed approaching Williams’ home from one direction and two others coming from another, before muzzle flashes appeared, he said. All the would-be robbers ran away, but Reed did not return to the getaway car, so he was left behind.

He left his cell phone in the car, and lost his shoes running from Williams’ home. Caught in a heavy downpour, he started knocking on doors, asking to use a phone, and the neighbors called police.

Police detained and questioned him, and he eventually confessed, investigators said, though he was not arrested that night.

Lamb said detectives found shell casings from a .45-caliber Glock pistol Reed owned, and from two 9-millimeter handguns, one belonging to Williams, whose weapon jammed during the shootout.

The other 9-millimeter has not been found. That was the gun Seldon used to shoot Williams, said Lamb, explaining that he needed Patrick’s testimony to prove Seldon fired the fatal shots.

Garner countered that it was not Seldon, but a close friend of Reed’s who killed Williams, a person police have not implicated in the slaying.

The guilty pleas

Reed and the fourth suspect in Williams’ slaying, his ex-girlfriend Anna Elizabeth Stecenko, pleaded guilty in May 2022, when Stecenko testified Reed had tried to get her to lure Williams from his house for a robbery.

She refused to do that, triggering an argument with Reed at her home on Fairview Drive, where he had been staying, she said. She later dropped him off on Schatulga Road to meet with Patrick and Seldon.

The three men went to Williams’ home, intending to surprise him, but Williams was outside and saw them coming, investigators said. Stecenko said Reed later told her Williams started shooting as soon as he saw them coming, and they shot back.

After police questioned Reed and released him, she and Reed returned to Williams’ neighborhood to find a gun Reed had hidden there, and then they took the weapon to Harris County to bury it near her mother’s house, she said.

Police arrested Reed on Aug. 13, 2019, she said, and days later charged her after learning she helped hide his gun, which investigators recovered.

Stecenko, 24, pleaded guilty to evidence tampering. Superior Court Judge John Martin said her recommended sentence will be 10 years in prison with six to serve and the rest on probation.

Reed, 25, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and to using a gun to commit a crime. He faces up to 25 years in prison, Martin said, but neither Reed nor Stecenko will be sentenced until the trial ends.

All other charges against the pair will be dropped in exchange for their testimony, authorities said.

If convicted, Seldon faces life in prison.

Reed’s story

During his guilty plea last year, Reed testified that he met with Patrick and Seldon “to get some money.”

They got into Patrick’s silver Hyundai with Seldon driving and parked near Williams’ home, he said. Each suspect was armed with a handgun as they approached Williams’ residence from the rear, but they discovered Williams was sitting out on the front porch, he said.

Williams saw Reed, pulled out a pistol and started shooting, Reed said, so Reed shot back and ran, fearing he’d be caught in a crossfire.

He found a vacant house, discarded his Glock pistol, and doffed a camouflage jacket before police caught and detained him, he said.