By Sandy Hodson
The Augusta Chronicle
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Weeks after an off-duty sheriff”s deputy was fatally shot outside a south Augusta home, additional shell casings were found that could prove crucial to proving what happened the afternoon 43-year-old Gregory Cooke died.
At a preliminary hearing Thursday in Richmond County Superior Court for 17-year-old Naheem Caldwell, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Woodrow Boyd testified he collected two 9 mm shell casings Wednesday in the front yard of 2416 Lennox Road. Caldwell admitted he shot at Cooke five times, contending he did it in defense of his father.
Boyd testified he went to the scene of the June 15 shooting Wednesday after attorney Keith Johnson, who is representing the teen, called the agent back to the home off of Windsor Spring Road. Scientific testing should prove if the casings were fired from the 9 mm gun Caldwell used to shoot Cooke, the agent said
The issue could be crucial because Caldwell’s father, Stevie Caldwell, admitted that on the afternoon of the shooting he disposed of other shell casings after his son fled the scene with his cousin, Donnelle Osborne, 18. The pair turned over the 9 mm and Cooke’s 40-caliber Glock, which they admitted taking from Cooke, when they surrendered in Burke County not long after the shooing.
During Stevie Caldwell’s preliminary hearing Wednesday, Judge Ashley Wright chastised him, telling Caldwell that his actions may prevent anyone from knowing what happened that night because he tampered with physical evidence.
Naheem Caldwell and Osborne told officers they believed Cooke was threatening Stevie Caldwell with a gun and Naheem fired at the deputy from the front yard. The shell casings Boyd collected Wednesday were about five and nine feet from the front door, he testified. Stevie Caldwell indicated the casings he tossed in a storm drain were on the road.
Three 9 mm casings were found in the storm drain. Two were found in the yard. Cooke was shot five times, four times in his legs and once in his back.
Stevie Caldwell and his estranged wife told officers there was a heated exchanged between him and Cooke that afternoon. Caldwell said he thought Cooke might have been the man his wife dated while he was serving a lengthy prison term. Cooke, they said, got out of his vehicle with a handgun and confronted Caldwell who was sitting in his vehicle in front of the house.
As she did at the conclusion of preliminary hearings for Osborne and Stevie Caldwell earlier in the week, the judge found probable cause existed to send the charges against Naheem Caldwell to the grand jury for possible indictment.
Osborne and Naheem Caldwell are charged with murder, aggravated assault and armed robbery. Stevie Caldwell is charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and tampering with evidence.
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©2017 The Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Ga.)