There is no relief for losing a son to gun violence, said the mother of JayLyne “J.J.” Cannon, who was gunned down at a 2019 party while seated on the floor.
“I have never experienced such devastating pain,” Jan Chapman said. “I still can’t bring myself to think about how he died. We will never come to terms with it, and we will never heal.”
Cannon spoke to the court after a Richmond County jury convicted Jamario D. Anderson, 25, of her son’s brutal murder and the aggravated assault of three others at the party.
“He had just turned 18,” Chapman said. “He didn’t have an illness or an accident… He didn’t want to die.”
A Richmond County jury found Anderson guilty on all nine counts prosecutors presented of malice and felony murder, aggravated assault and gun possession.
Superior Court Judge Amanda Heath gave Anderson what appeared to be the maximum possible sentence: Life without parole for murder, plus three 20-year terms for aggravated assault and four five-year terms for possessing a firearm while committing a felony. It’s a combined life without parole plus 80 years.
Heath said the “stranger-on stranger-gun violence” was “truly appalling to the court.”
Anderson did not know Cannon; he just saw her speaking a former girlfriend at a party.
“What really baffles the court is to encounter a complete stranger, but within seconds that person is dead,” she said.
“My son’s murder was senseless and cruel,” Chapman said. “His murder… was in a friend’s home where he was supposed to feel safe.”
Chapman said she gets comfort when others share stories about her son, “how clever, friendly and kind he was to be around.”
Anderson testified on his own behalf, claiming Cannon had a gun, too, and that he shot him in self defense, and even addressed the court during his sentencing.
“I really had to do what I had to do,” Anderson said. “He had a Hi-Point,” a pistol.
Anderson claimed at trial there was a 10-year-old not interviewed by investigators who saw the other gun. Others at the Meadowbrook Drive-area party, where they admitted there was underage drinking, did not testify regarding the presence of a second gun.
“What is telling,” Augusta Circuit Assistant District Attorney Justin Mullis said, “is he did choose to testify in his own defense. Jamario has shown no remorse; zero,” Mullis said. “He executed an 18-year-old man.”
Assistant Public Defender Sean Gamble said Anderson was “one of the most intelligent, sincere clients” he had ever had, urging Heath to give him a chance at parole.
The oldest of four in a family that moved around a lot, Anderson had a “complicated childhood and adolescence,” Gamble said.
Anderson’s aunt spoke on his behalf. He claimed to her “it was self-defense,” she said. “Where is the missing gun? Where is the missing gun” she chanted.
In a statement, Mullis said a “team effort” that included ADA Dre’Kevius Huff and Victim Advocate Shelly Blaisdell got a “dangerous criminal” off the streets of Augusta.
“Our goal in the district attorney’s office is to change lives, not simply win cases,” District Attorney Jared Williams said in the statement. “We need support from our community to put an end to the senseless violence that tears families apart.”
The jury deliberated all afternoon Wednesday and about an hour Thursday before returning the verdicts.
