Kejuan Charde Hall
Shameeka LaShae Watson
Clarence McCord III
February 11, 2011
2 charged in store clerk's slaying
By Joe Johnson
The Athens Herald-Banner
Athens-Clarke police have charged two homeless people with murdering a pregnant store clerk on Dec. 30 while she worked the night shift at a Westside convenience store.
Investigators caught a break when someone called them Wednesday afternoon with the names of two suspects, who officers quickly tracked to an apartment complex off West Broad Street and found in a parked car where they sleep.
After several hours of questioning by detectives and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, Clarence McCord, 36, and Shameeka Lashae Watson, 30, each were charged with murder in the stabbing death of 25-year-old KeJuan Charde Hall at a Golden Pantry on the corner of Atlanta Highway and Timothy Road.
Police expect a grand jury will indict them on feticide and other charges as well.
Investigators still are unsure of a motive for the slaying, though a police official said it is possible Hall may have been killed during a botched robbery.
The GBI has worked closely with local police since the beginning, when the agency sent crime scene investigators to the Golden Pantry the night of the murder. GBI agents have chased down numerous leads and conducted many interviews during the probe, according to Jim Fullington, special agent in charge of the GBI office in Athens.
Agents continue to help police come up with a motive, he said.
McCord and Watson may have gone into the store with the intent to rob it, but gave up because they were interrupted by too many customers trying to enter the 24-hour business, Athens-Clarke police Capt. Clarence Holeman said.
"From the information we gathered (Wednesday) and doing further investigation throughout the evening, we feel robbery may have been a motive," Holeman said.
While Hall was in a back office - possibly already dead - the suspects pretended to be employees and turned away customers by telling them the store was closed, police said; they even turned off the store's lights.
Police believe McCord and Watson both stabbed Hall, one using a knife and the other a screwdriver.
But detectives have not nailed down robbery as the motive and they remain open to different theories, according to Holeman, commanding officer of the Athens-Clarke police Centralized Criminal Investigations division.
For example, he said, investigators are not discounting the possibility someone hired the suspects to kill Hall.
That's because nothing was stolen from the store, even though the killers took the time to disconnect and take the videocassette recorder that held the surveillance tape, Holeman said.
"That was the puzzling part, and why on the surface it appeared to be a personal thing," he said. "But I still have no idea why they killed her. I'm trying to leave this wide open because we're not finished with this investigation by a long shot."
Though a devoted mother who worked to support her daughter, Hall had associated with some unsavory people during her life and that opened up the possibility of various motives.
For example, authorities say two of the men in Hall's life were no strangers to murder.
They believe the father of Hall's 8-year-old arranged a hit in 2006, hiring two men to kill a drug dealer he had a beef with. The killers were convicted of murder, but authorities were unable to prove they'd been paid.
And the father of Hall's unborn child was arrested in 1993 on charges he and another man raped and shot to death two women whose bodies were found off Olympic Drive. Prosecutors dismissed charges against the man after his co-defendant was acquitted by a Clarke County jury.
"We're going to check all avenues for a motive and everything is still on the table to try to find out why the murder was done in the manner it was," Holeman said.
"We're just happy to have somebody in custody because in my mind, this probably would have happened again somewhere - maybe not in Athens-Clarke County, but somewhere," he said.
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