John Jefferson
The 7-Eleven convenience store in Alexandria, Virginia, where police said Jordan Cochran shot a man in the eye on Jan. 8, 2022 (WRC/YouTube). Inset: Jordan Cochran (Fairfax County Police Department).
A Virginia man who shot and killed his friend after a fight over a pair of sneakers, proceeded to blind another man by shooting him in the eye and then bragged to police after his arrest that he got his “first two bodies,” has been found guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding.
A jury in Fairfax County reached the guilty verdict in the case of Jordan Cochran, 22, on Tuesday. He will be sentenced in November and faces the possibility of getting life in prison.
An attorney for Cochran did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The killing and maiming occurred on Jan. 8, 2022, when, according to a statement from Fairfax County Police, the Alexandria resident opened fire on his friend at a bus stop on Richmond Highway and Dart Drive.
Cochran was arguing with Kebbren Leigh-Gaye, then just 18 years old and a recent high school graduate. The two got into a fistfight over a pair of shoes and a cellphone, local NBC affiliate WRC reported.
At trial, jurors learned that Cochran pulled the gun on Leigh-Gaye only after the men had stopped tussling and were physically separated. Then Cochran fired a single shot at Leigh-Gaye.
His friend now dead, Cochran then took the shoes off the 18-year-old’s feet, snatched his cellphone and wallet and fled, police said.
Cochran got as far as a nearby 7-Eleven convenience store. Prosecutors said Cochran approached a man and woman while there and asked the man for a ride. Police said that when Cochran was rejected, he fired a single round at the man, shooting him in his eye.
The victim ended up going blind in that eye.
Police would eventually find and arrest Cochran in the parking lot of a Taco Bell close to the 7-Eleven. He allegedly had a gun on him, and police and prosecutors said it was the same gun he used to kill Leigh-Gaye.
Once under arrest, police body camera footage captured an arrogant, boastful Cochran seemingly undisturbed by his own actions.
At one point, Cochran even made a pass at the arresting female officer, asking her: “What would you rate me on a scale of 1 to 10?”
The officer could be heard responding incredulously: “What would I rate you? Well, you just murdered someone.”
“Two people! Two people. You hear me? Two,” Cochran yelled, according to WRC.
In truth, he only murdered one person, but in footage of his arrest, he continued to boast about getting his first kills.
“I finally killed somebody. These are my first two bodies,” Cochran said.
He also could be heard saying on bodycam footage that he was scared and didn’t know what was going to happen to him.
“This is my first time going to the big boy jail,” he allegedly remarked.
He was also heard saying: “I’ve been geeking to click that joint all day, and I finally killed somebody.”
“That joint” appears to reference his firearm and “geeking” typically represents an excitable state.
As WRC reported, at trial jurors learned that only days before Leigh-Gaye was killed, the 18-year-old had brought Cochran back to his house to stay with him. The teen told his father that Cochran had been forced out of his own home. Leigh-Gaye’s father testified that he had agreed to let Cochran stay until he learned the young man had a gun on him. Then he kicked Cochran out.
Defense lawyers said Cochran acted in self-defense and held no actual malice toward Leigh-Gaye. Further, one defense attorney reportedly argued, “when you’ve been beat up in a bus stop by a guy you thought was your friend, your mind is not in a state of reason.”
But there was no reason in the slaying of Leigh-Gaye or the shooting of another victim shortly thereafter, prosecutors told the jury.
A reasonable person “does not bring out a gun just because they lost a fistfight,” they said.
In an obituary for Leigh-Gaye, it was noted that the teen played football in high school just prior to graduating and that had only recently begun traveling overseas, visiting family in Gambia and delighting in traditional culinary fare when he wasn’t volunteering at a high school there run by his aunt.
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