A former Clark Atlanta student and her boyfriend were indicted for the murder of 21-year-old Alexis Crawford.
Jordyn Jones, 22, and Barron Brantley, 21, were indicted for the strangulation death of Crawford on Friday, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Jones received six charges, including two counts of felony murder, concealment of a death, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Brantley received the same and an additional aggravated sodomy charge.
Crawford, a senior at Clark Atlanta, died on Oct. 31 following an altercation with the couple, prosecutors say. Five days before her death, Crawford accused Brantley of sexually assaulting her and reported the incident to the police. The accusation reportedly generated animosity between Crawford and Jones, who was her roommate.
Authorities describe the series of events that led to Crawford’s slaying as beginning with the two young women making a run to a liquor store on the night of Oct. 30, after which the two got into a fistfight some hours later. Brantley intervened by choking Crawford, and Jones later put a plastic bag over her roommate’s head.
“As a result of the physical altercation, Barron Brantley choked the victim until she was deceased,” a police report stated. “Afterwards, Jones and Brantley placed Alexis Crawford in a plastic bin and transported her body to Exchange Park in Decatur … where they placed her body in the woods.”
Crawford was reported missing on Nov. 1, and when investigators spoke to Jones she told them she had no idea where her roommate went. Jones told she had not seen Crawford since the liquor run.
Crawford’s body was found a week later in a plastic bin at a park in Decatur, Georgia. The couple was arrested within a day of the discovery, and officials later determined she died from asphyxiation. The case made national headlines because of the nature of Crawford’s death and the fact that the two women used to be close friends.
Crawford’s family said she referred to Jones “as her best friend,” and she’d spent holidays at their home.
“Jordyn has spent … Easter, Thanksgiving in the Crawford household,” family spokesperson Rev. Markel Hutchins told 11Alive in November. “She spent other days there, she knew Alexis’ siblings and parents, and they knew her. For Jordyn to be involved, it’s heartwrenching.”
Brantley and Jones currently are being held in the Fulton County Jail without bond.
