Latoya Singleton did everything she could think of to escape an abusive relationship, but she knew she wouldn't make it, the women closest to her said Thursday.
On April 14, 2007, Jimmy Lee Jones broke into Ms. Singleton's home. When he left, she lay dead on the kitchen floor, their infant daughter by her side.
It took a Richmond County Superior Court jury a little more than an hour Thursday to find Mr. Jones guilty of murder and two weapon violations. He could be sentenced as soon as June 5.
"When you put a gun to someone's head ... there's no accident involved in any way, shape or form," District Attorney Ashley Wright told the jury in her closing argument.
In his account of what happened that night, Mr. Jones said he was only trying to console a crying woman by hugging her and pulling the trigger on the handgun to prove it was empty.
Medical evidence proved the gun was pressed to the back of Ms. Singleton's head when she was shot, Ms. Wright said.
When Ms. Singleton fell for Mr. Jones, she didn't know he had served five years in prison for wounding his common-law wife in 1996, shooting her three times, said Ms. Singleton's cousin, Sandra Williams.
His violent nature surfaced, however. The prosecutor introduced evidence that the sheriff's department had to intervene a half-dozen times in the months before the murder.
She broke up with Mr. Jones, changed the locks on her doors and the alarm security code. She stopped going out as much as possible and avoided the constantly ringing phone, her family said. But Ms. Singleton said she couldn't leave her home because she cared for three disabled women there, her cousins said.
When Ms. Singleton was eight months pregnant, Mr. Jones forced her into the trunk of her car and drove to Burke County, where he left her alone in some woods, her aunt Carrie Childs said.
"He told her she would be dead and stinking before anyone found her," she said.
Three weeks before she died, Ms. Singleton called her aunt, begging her to take baby Lejanea Carlysia if anything happened, Ms. Childs said.
"She said, 'Jimmy is going to kill me,' " she said.
Ms. Childs is rearing the baby now. Lejanea Carlysia is her blessing, she said.
Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
According to the latest information available, 127 domestic violence killings occurred in Georgia in 2005, and 1,181 took place throughout the country.
Victims of domestic violence can seek help locally by calling Safe Homes at (706) 736-2499; anyplace in Georgia at (800) 33-HAVEN (334-2836); and anyplace in the United States at (800) 799-SAFE.
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