A jury took a little more than hour last week to find a Jacksonville man guilty of a 2023 triple murder, including his grandparents, according to court records.
Ja-Darrius Jashawn Jones was 18 at the time he gunned down his grandparents, 58-year-old Uneeda Voncile Hardy and 63-year-old Gregory Joel Merritt, and friend Luther Lewis Williams, 44, at the family home on Bridges Road near Dunn Avenue. The family had previously told television news that it was over some kind of feud.
Police were called to the home about 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 15 and found Williams dead in the front yard and Merritt and Hardy dead in a bedroom. All had been shot multiple times, according to the arrest report.
Uneeda Hardy, from left, Gregory Merritt and Luther Williams were shot and killed at a Jacksonville in 2023. Ja-darrius Jones has been found guilty in their murders. Hardy and Merritt were his grandparents.
A witness at a nearby house told police Jones showed up at her home in a black car and walked inside armed with a gun. She described him wearing a fanny pack and white sneakers with blood on them. When another person in the house found out about the nearby shooting and saw Jones’ bloody shoes, they began fighting and Jones ran away, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
Police chased him down and took him into custody. The fanny pack and vehicle belonged to Williams.
Jones, now 20, will serve a mandatory life sentence of life in prison.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Triple murder who killed grandparents is found guilty in Jacksonville