Vivid details offered in WVC golf course murder

JoJo Brandstatt's only request was to call his mom.

His captors told him, "No." A short time later, he was led through a broken fence, up a small hill to a golf course, shot three times and left for dead.

"It's really hard … hard to know my son's only request was to call me, and that they didn't even let him do that," sobbed Brandstatt's mother, Elka Fernandez, outside 3rd District Judge Vernice Trease's courtroom.

On Wednesday, a preliminary hearing got underway for two men and a woman accused of kidnapping Brandstatt and killing him, apparently because he wore the rival gang colors of one of the assailants.

Jeremiah H. Williamson, 28; Spencer Isaiah Cater, 18; and Shardise O. Malaga, 19, each are charged with murder, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and five counts of aggravated robbery in connection with the Feb. 5 shooting death. A fourth person, a 14-year-old that witnesses and prosecutors believe was the ring leader, is charged with similar crimes in juvenile court. A hearing to determine whether he can be certified as an adult is scheduled for July 15.

The majority of witness testimony Wednesday came from Greg Brown, a man who was allegedly kidnapped prior to the murder, forced to commit robberies to pay off his abductors, and who eventually dragged Brandstatt into the situation with a phone call.

"That's what makes me so angry: He died over something he wasn't a part of," Fernandez said.

In court, several of Brandstatt's relatives wore black T-shirts with his picture on the front with the words, "In loving memory of our baby JoJo."

The bizarre story began when Brown, 19, met up with the defendants earlier that day for what he thought would be an exchange of drugs for a gun. Instead, the defendants robbed him. But when they couldn't find as much money on Brown as they had hoped, they made him stay in their car while they drove around.

"I'm feeling a little nervous, like something's about to go down," he said in court during very detailed testimony of that day's events.

The next thing Brown heard was the term "green light" being used, street lingo for killing someone, he said. One of the defendants pulled out a gun and cocked the trigger, Brown said. Browns's wrists were bound together with duct tape.

The juvenile told Brown, "You need $2,000 for your life."