Trials Pushed Back To August In 2023 Murders
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Yalobusha County deputies broke up a fight on the courthouse lawn in Coffeeville Wednesday morning.
COFFEEVILLE – Although unrelated, the 2023 murders of Chauncey Armstrong and Fredarrious Wilson occurred less than a month apart and seven defendants – three in Armstrong’s murder and four in Wilson’s murder – are working through the circuit court docket on a similar path.
Trials were initially scheduled for six of the seven defendants in March, and they were on the court docket last Wednesday, Feb. 21, the deadline for a potential plea agreement. Circuit Judge Jimmy McClure granted continuances for the cases at the requests of attorneys representing the defendants and from Assistant District Attorney Marvell Gordon, pushing the trials back to the August term of court in Coffeeville.
Lakendrick Spearman, Zavion Spearman and Anthony Spearman, Jr. are each charged with first degree murder by deliberate design and conspiracy to commit murder after Chauncey Armstrong was gunned down in broad daylight on Kennedy Street in Coffeeville on March 30, 2023. Lakendrick Spearman and Zavion Spearman are siblings and Anthony Spearman, Jr. is a cousin to the brothers. The continuances were granted as the results of ballistics and other forensic testing submitted to the Mississippi Crime Lab have are still being processed.
Devin Smith, Bralin Jackson, Brandon Jackson and Layvonnia Jackson are each charged with first degree murder by deliberate design and conspiracy to commit murder after allegedly gunning down West Memphis teenager Fredarrious Wilson on March 5, 2023. The orders granting the continuances stated both parties need more time to review voluminous discovery collected in the case.
Smith, who changed attorneys earlier this year, was the only defendant in the murder cases who was not scheduled for trial in March. Judge McClure also set his trial date during the August term of court.
While the court action was anticlimactic, the courtroom was filled with family members of the defendants and family members of the victims in both cases. Tension was high and a brawl erupted on the front lawn of the courthouse, likely connected to the Armstrong murder.
“Everybody stay in your seats,” Deputy Tyler Wortham directed as he briefly entered the second-floor courtroom before joining other deputies to separate the feuding parties. One person was treated for minor injuries during the brawl.
In the Wilson murder, a caravan of five vehicles with family members and friends of the victim traveled from Arkansas to Coffeeville for the hearing. Wilson’s mother, Shirley Howell, told the Herald during court that family members will continue to closely monitor the case.
Case History
Wilson was only months away from graduating from the Academies of West Memphis (AWS) when he was gunned down in the Holly Springs National Forest in Yalobusha County.
Howell reported her son missing on March 5, 2023, when he did not return home after going to the movies with a classmate.
Two days later, on March 7, the Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department received a call from the West Memphis Police Department after the missing teen’s phone’s last location was pinged in a remote area in Yalobusha County. The county dispatcher received the call around 6 p.m. and deputies searched the area until after midnight with no success.
The following morning, March 8, a U.S. Forest Service employee spotted Wilson’s body approximately 30 yards off of County Road 243 at 11 a.m. The Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department responded and were assisted by agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) and the Water Valley Police Department as officers spent hours processing evidence.
It would take another week of exhaustive investigative work before arrests were made by the Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department. All four suspects were from the Coffeeville area. Layvonnia Jackson and Bralin Jackson are husband and wife.
