An 18-year-old is dead and a man is recovering from a gunshot wound to the eye after two shootings Saturday evening off Richmond Highway in the Hybla Valley area of Fairfax County. Police say the suspected gunman shot someone he knew and then shot a driver who refused to give him a ride.
Kebbren Leigh-Gaye died after the first shooting.
Fairfax County police say Jordan Eugene Cochran, 20, of Alexandria, shot and killed Leigh-Gaye in a dispute over shoes at a bus stop at Richmond Highway (Route 1) and Dart Drive. Cochran allegedly robbed the victim before firing the fatal shot.
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Detectives say Cochran shot Leigh-Gaye and ran to the parking lot of the nearby 7-Eleven at 3100 Lockheed Boulevard. He approached a driver and asked for a ride.
“When he was denied, he fired one round, which struck an adult man in the eye,” police said in a statement.
Officers were called to the area at about 6:20 p.m. They say they found Cochran in the parking lot of a nearby Taco Bell with a handgun and property belonging to Leigh-Gaye.
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Cochran was charged with second-degree murder, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, malicious wounding and robbery. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer.
Leigh-Gaye was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and later pronounced dead. The driver who was shot in the eye was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.
Speaking with News4 by phone on Sunday, Kebba Gaye remembered his only child as “full of life” and said, “His kindness was his biggest weakness.”
“When you asked him what he cared about, it was always God and family,” Gaye said.
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The grieving father recalled Leigh-Gaye spending hours shoveling snow for family members and neighbors following Monday’s snowstorm.
Leigh-Gaye graduated from Mount Vernon High School in June and was one of the school football team’s best wide receivers, his father said.
“Kebbren is kind, high energy, passionate, and most importantly, caring of everyone he came in contact with,” his family said in a statement to News4. “He has a fun-loving personality, especially in regards to his family."
Coach Monty Fritts said his personality drew others to him.
“Was just an extremely playful young man, always joking in a good way,” he said. “A lot of people really like to hang out with him because of how funny he was.”
His father said he just took the “trip of a lifetime to Africa.” He was enrolled at Northern Virginia Community College, worked for Amazon and hoped to open his own barber shop someday.
“Kebbren’s kindness is a reflection of both his mother and his father,” the family’s statement said. “He will be remembered as someone who was selfless and regardless of what others thought always saw the best in people. This is his legacy.”
Cochran was arrested two years ago at West Potomac High School after a basketball game with Mt. Vernon. He was carrying a concealed handgun with the serial number scratched off.
“For it to be a kid that we knew had issues with a handgun before to be on the street with a handgun and shoot an 18-year-old is pretty crazy, and I don’t understand how he was able to do that,” Fritts said.
Cochran was charged with a felony for bringing a gun onto school property but was allowed to plead guilty in November 2020 to two misdemeanors. Almost all of his 18-month sentence was suspended.
Sources said Cochran was given a plea deal because he cooperated in a homicide investigation.
Fairfax County police say the homicide investigation is their first of 2022.
