A detective testified Monday that a man who allegedly shot a handyman at a Magnolia apartment complex last month before surrendering to a SWAT team expressed no remorse immediately after the shooting.
“He casually walked back to his apartment as if nothing was wrong,” Magnolia police investigator Cody Cooper said during testimony in the preliminary hearing for Sedric Elzie, 36, of Magnolia, who is charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 23 death of DeShauntrall Cole, 31, of Summit.
Judge Shequeena McKenzie bound Elzie’s case over to the grand jury and ordered him held without bond on a hold from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Cooper was the only witness who testified at the hearing, which Elzie attended virtually.
Elzie surrendered as a SWAT team approached the apartment where he was holed up for more than two hours on the night of Cole’s death.
Police still have not established a motive for the shooting.
Magnolia Police Chief Sonya Woodall said Cole was mounting a television on a wall at Sunshine Apartments on McKay Road when the shooting occurred.
Cooper said he spoke to the apartment manager and her daughter, who witnessed the shooting.
“Both of the witnesses ID’d him,” he said, adding that Elzie didn’t express much of a reaction after the shooting.
Cooper said officers served two search warrants at the apartment that Elzie shared with his mother.
He said officers found a weapon about 15 to 20 feet from the back door of the apartment during the second search.
Cooper said the apartment manager told him that had she known Elzie was a convicted felon she would have reprimanded him for having a firearm on the premises.
With two witnesses identifying Elzie and the discovery of a weapon, McKenzie said there’s enough probable cause to send the case to the grand jury.
“It’s a very low threshold to me,” she said.
