Lexington man found guilty of murder in fatal 2017 shooting that was caught on camera
A man who was caught on camera shooting a man multiple times in the parking lot of a Lakeshore Drive apartment complex in 2017 was found guilty Thursday of multiple charges.
After four hours of deliberation, a jury found 35-year-old Courtney Darnell Kidd guilty of intentional murder in the May 7, 2017, shooting death of 26-year-old Jordan Yeast, according to Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn. Kidd was also found guilty of attempted murder of Yeast’s girlfriend.
Kidd was acquitted of first-degree robbery in the case.
The jury was scheduled to hear further evidence in the case Monday before recommending a sentence, Red Corn said. But most proceedings were shut down in the court system after an order issued by the chief justice.
Yeast died after Kidd shot him at least six times, prosecutors said. The entire shooting was captured on surveillance video, which clearly shows Kidd approaching Yeast’s car from behind with a gun.
In the video, Kidd can then be seen leaning in the car to talk with Yeast, before he raises the gun and begins firing.
Kidd had given Yeast 19 pills to sell earlier that day, saying they were Percocets. Earlier in the trial, Yeast’s girlfriend testified that the pills were fake, and that Yeast had gotten rid of them.
Kidd called multiple times that day wanting Yeast to pay him for the pills, Yeast’s girlfriend said. When Kidd later approached Yeast’s car in the parking lot of the Lakeshore Drive apartment complex, he demanded the pills or the money, she said.
Yeast died at the scene of the shooting, but his girlfriend survived. She was booked into the Fayette County jail later that night on unrelated warrants, where she learned that she was pregnant with Yeast’s child.
Yeast and his girlfriend were both struggling with addiction at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
Kidd’s attorney, Rodney Barnes, told jurors that he did not dispute that Kidd was the one who fired the shots. Barnes did argue that Kidd had believed he was acting in self defense.
Barnes also said during his closing arguments that Yeast was not a bad person, and he had not deserved to die. Yeast was a human who made mistakes, he said.
Barnes argued that his client has had a difficult life and probably has post traumatic stress disorder from some of the things he’s seen. When Kidd was a child, he watched his brother die of a gunshot wound, Barnes said.
Assistant commonwealth’s attorney Traci Caneer argued that Kidd purposefully going into that kind of conflict situation was not consistent with post traumatic stress disorder, and that it would not justify shooting Yeast. She also said that because of Kidd’s actions, Yeast’s sister, who was also at the apartment complex at the time of the shooting, had to watch her own brother die of gunshot wounds.
Kidd took the stand during his trial and told jurors that he’d been robbed by Yeast earlier in the day of the shooting, his attorney said. Kidd had said he never saw a gun during that alleged robbery, but had felt something being pressed into his back.
Caneer said during closing arguments Thursday that even if Yeast had robbed Kidd earlier that day, it would have been a separate event and not grounds to consider the later shooting an act of self defense.
Barnes said during his own closing arguments that he believed Kidd had thought that Yeast had a gun, but that Kidd had been mistaken. Based on that, Barnes told the jurors that he felt they should find his client guilty of second-degree manslaughter instead of murder.
Barnes also asked jurors to find Barnes guilty of wanton endangerment instead of attempted murder in the shots that were fired at Yeast’s girlfriend, saying that Kidd had fired at the ground in her direction to scare and not to try to kill her.
Caneer argued that a bullet hole in the top tail light of an SUV that was parked toward the area where Yeast’s girlfriend was showed that Kidd had not been firing at the ground. She also argued that someone doesn’t shoot at a person three times if they are only trying to scare or injure them.
Kidd will be sentenced at a later date.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 7:42 AM.
