J'Shaad KeVon Lylerice Jones, known in news reports as “Double O,” was an 18-year-old Black/African American male from Charleston, West Virginia, whose life ended during the early morning hours of December 31, 2015. Shortly before 2:00 a.m., Jones was outside Artie’s Kickback Lounge at 935 Central Avenue on Charleston’s West Side when he was shot in the torso.
Although the exact sequence immediately preceding the gunfire was not publicly detailed, investigators determined that the shooting occurred somewhere outside the lounge while the business was open. After being wounded, Jones made it into a field behind the establishment, where he collapsed. Emergency personnel transported him to Charleston Area Medical Center’s General Hospital, but he was pronounced dead from his injuries.
The homicide initially left investigators without a publicly identified suspect. Charleston police interviewed several witnesses and began trying to reconstruct what had happened outside the lounge. The killing came during an unusually violent stretch on Charleston’s West Side, with several shootings occurring within a short period. Detectives were already investigating what they described as a continuing dispute involving individuals associated with two groups that called themselves the Shine Boys and the Young Restless Gunnas. Police identified Jones as being associated with the Young Restless Gunnas, although authorities did not establish publicly that his killing was simply a gang-related execution or identify a single definitive motive. Investigators said some of the shootings in the area appeared to involve people who knew one another and could have been connected to an ongoing cycle of retaliation.
Jones himself had been sought by police before his death in connection with an earlier Charleston shooting. Authorities said a malicious-wounding warrant had been issued accusing him of shooting Malik Hawk on Bream Street during December. Hawk survived after suffering gunshot wounds. That incident was among the episodes police were examining as they attempted to understand the escalating violence on the West Side. After Jones was killed, police also reported evidence of people seeking retaliation for his death, reinforcing investigators’ concern that the shooting could trigger further violence. Authorities increased patrols and began making numerous felony arrests in an effort to stop the continuing confrontations.
The first major break in Jones’s homicide came almost immediately after the new year. On January 2, 2016, Charleston police announced the arrest of Marlon Rush and charged him with first-degree murder. Investigators connected Rush to the events surrounding the shooting outside the Kickback Lounge. At that stage, Rush was being treated as the principal defendant in the homicide, but the investigation continued and police soon identified another man as being involved.
Less than a week later, Christopher Landric Burton of Huntington was arrested in Logan. Charleston police announced his arrest on January 8. According to the criminal complaint described in contemporary reporting, Burton had been with Rush on Central Avenue on the night Jones was killed. The case therefore developed from an initially unsolved shooting into a prosecution involving two defendants. A Kanawha County grand jury subsequently indicted both Burton and Rush on murder and conspiracy charges. Both initially entered not-guilty pleas, and the case appeared headed toward a joint criminal trial.
The case ultimately did not go to a jury. On October 31, 2016, Burton pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Reporting on the plea identified Burton as the person who shot and killed Jones. By accepting the second-degree murder charge, Burton avoided the uncertainty of a trial on the more serious allegations contained in the indictment. Rush also eventually resolved his case through a guilty plea, but his conviction was reduced substantially from the original murder charge: he pleaded guilty to being an accessory.
On January 4, 2017, both men were sentenced. Burton received 40 years in prison for the murder, along with an additional five-year sentence connected to his status as a repeat offender. Rush received five years for his accessory conviction and another five years because the conviction represented his fourth felony. During the sentencing hearing, Rush addressed Jones’s family and maintained that he had not personally participated in the shooting, despite his guilty plea to the accessory charge. Police, however, had placed Rush and Burton together near the Kickback Lounge when Jones was shot. The final court resolutions left Burton convicted of the killing itself and Rush convicted for his role as an accessory, bringing the homicide investigation that began outside the Central Avenue lounge to convictions and prison sentences for both men.
