TATTNALL COUNTY, Ga. (WSAV) - The date for the jury selection in the Bobby Kicklighter murder case has been announced.
Kicklighter wasfound dead in his home on January 30, 2021.
In August 2021, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced the arrest of three individuals, all charged with the murder of Kicklighter.
Keisha Jenae Jones, a former employee of the Georgia Department of Corrections who was allegedly in a relationship with a Smith State Prison inmate, Aerial Deshay Murphy, a roommate of Keisha Jones, and Christopher Reginald Sumlin Jr., a former inmate of Smith State Prison who had been released less than a year prior. Three days later, the GBI announced that inmate Nathan Weekes, also of Smith State Prison, had also been charged. Sumlin was also charged in the murder of Jerry Lee Davis in neighboring Wayne County that had occurred two weeks' prior to Kicklighter's murder.
In April 2022, a Tattnall County grand jury indicted all four individuals, outlining the alleged criminal activity, violent crimes across the region, and the supposed criminal enterprise operating at Smith State Prison. In September of the same year, the state formally announced it would seek the death penalty for Nathan Weekes and Christopher Sumlin, who will be tried separately. The charges against Jones and Murphy are also expected to be adjudicated in their entirety at the conclusion of the Weekes and Sumlin trials.
Whether or not the case will need a change of venue is to be determined. All four of the individuals charged in the Kicklighter murder have been behind bars since their arrests.