A young man who was caught on video bragging about shooting two people in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 2022 was convicted on Tuesday.
Jordan Cochran was found guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding. He was 20 at the time of the shooting.
Kebbren Leigh-Gaye, who was just 18 years old, died after the shooting on Jan. 8, 2022, on Richmond Highway (Route 1) at Dart Drive, in the Hybla Valley area. He was a friend of the shooter, who then turned on a total stranger and shot him in the eye. That man survived but was blinded.
Some of Leigh-Gaye’s family members wiped away tears of relief after the verdict was read. His father told News4 he’s pleased with the verdict and his family can now begin to move on and heal.
Testimony during the trial revealed that Cochran and Leigh-Gaye got into a fistfight at a bus stop over a pair of shoes. Prosecutors said the fight was over and the two had separated when Cochran pulled out a gun and fired one shot, killing Leigh-Gaye.
A witness said Cochran grabbed the shoes off Leigh-Gaye’s feet, plus his wallet and phone. About 20 minutes later, at the 7-Eleven in the 3100 block of Lockheed Boulevard, Cochran demanded that a stranger give him a ride. The man refused and Cochran shot him in the face, prosecutors said.
Officers found Cochran in the parking lot of a nearby Taco Bell with a gun.
‘These are my first two bodies’
Police video captured Cochran's disturbing conversation with an officer after the shooting.
“You just murdered someone,” the officer said.
“Two people! Two people! You hear me? Two!” Cochran screamed.
He seemed to believe he had killed both men he shot.
“I finally killed somebody,” he said. “These are my first two bodies.”
“I killed two (racial slur). I proved what I had to prove,” he later added.
He rapped for police and said he was anxious about being jailed.
“I’m honestly scared,” he said on video. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. This is my first time going to the big boy jail.”
Leigh-Gaye had recently graduated from Mount Vernon High School, where he played on the football team.
His father testified that just two days before the shooting, his son brought Cochran home and asked if he could stay for a few days after he was kicked out of his own home. When the father learned Cochran had a gun, he asked him to leave.
Cochran’s defense
Cochran’s defense attorneys tried to convince jurors that he fired in self-defense and was afraid after the fistfight.
"Without malice, there is no murder … 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,” an attorney said.
But the prosecutor pushed back, saying, "A reasonable person does not bring out a gun just because they lost a fistfight."
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Prosecutors also pointed to something else Cochran said on video: "I've been geeking to click that joint all day, and I finally killed somebody.”
Prosecutors said the comment shows that the crime was premeditated, with prosecutor Stephen Eubank telling jurors, "Jordan Cochran was looking for a reason to use that gun and within course of a half-hour, he found two of them."
Cochran is set to be sentenced in mid-November. He faces as long as life in prison.
Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.
