In the summer of 2014, in Hinesville, Georgia, a long-standing and tumultuous relationship came to a fatal end for James Edward Stewart Jr. The 30-year-old man, known to his family as EJ, died on June 6, 2014, after being shot with a pellet gun. His death was not the result of a random act of violence, but rather the culmination of a series of volatile encounters with a woman he had known since high school, Marquana Adele Jasper.
The conflict between Stewart and Jasper had been
escalating in the days leading up to the fatal shooting. A week prior, Stewart had been arrested for criminal trespass after being warned to stay away from Jasper's property. Despite the warning, he returned. On the day of his death, the situation intensified dramatically. Jasper's defense attorneys would later argue that Stewart was not acting right and had slapped one of her three children, causing the child to complain of tooth pain.
In what prosecutors would describe as an act of revenge, Jasper, with her children in the back seat of her Chevrolet Tahoe, pursued Stewart as he tried to get away from her down Elim Church Road. She got out of her vehicle and assaulted him before getting back in, retrieving a Ruger. 117 pellet air rifle, and firing at him. The pellet struck Stewart, and he was later found by police in a ditch on Highway 196. He was airlifted to a hospital where he ultimately succumbed to his injury. The medical examiner determined that the pellet wound to his brain was the cause of death.
Following an investigation, Marquana Adele Jasper was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and murder. During her trial, her defense team maintained that she did not intend to kill Stewart and was acting to protect her children. However, the prosecution presented evidence that Jasper had followed Stewart as he was trying to retreat and had confessed to the crime upon learning of his death and the upgraded charges. A written confession was read in court where Jasper reportedly stated, 'I am a murder. I am a murder. I am a murder.' After a trial in which a jury deliberated for about an hour and a half, Jasper was found guilty. She was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. During the sentencing, Stewart's sister, Natasha, gave a tearful testimony, expressing the profound loss her family endured and the difficulty she had in forgiving Jasper for her actions.
