Convicted felon accused of killing Chesterfield student goes to court | News

CHESTERFIELD, VA (WWBT) - A brief moment in court for the convicted felon accused of killing a Manchester High School student.

19-year-old Brandon Fordham appeared by closed circuit TV for a first degree murder charge. The case is one in a string of homicides in the last week in Chesterfield. Fordham now has an attorney, who plans to meet with his client in jail Wednesday. As for the shootings that happened in less than a week, police point out not one was random!

I'm told the ongoing strategy is to reduce homicides. Five murders in just six days in a county where police said the homicide rate is normally low.

The suspects range from a 19-year-old Clover Hill High School grad to a 70-year-old woman and two VSU students one of which is a wanted fugitive.

"None of us remember anything so intense as the last week in terms of this type of crime," said Chesterfield Police Captain David Pritchard.

Pritchard said it appears none of the five cases are related. One is domestic. Estelle Jones is accused of shooting her 71-year-old husband and 51-year-old developmentally disabled son.

Police said the shooting that ended Tyrail Hughes' life near the VSU campus stemmed from a dispute between two groups. Relatives of Joseph Roane said he rode home from a birthday party with the two suspects. The family believes an argument led to Roane's death.

Police haven't revealed a motive in the Tre Walton murder.  A search warrant states a witness saw Brandon Fordham shoot the 17-year-old several times in a breezeway at the Genito Glen apartments.

"These are all self contained situations, so we don't think the wider public safety issue is affected," said Pritchard.

As far as reducing homicides, Pritchard said the men and women on the force work to solve smaller crimes that lead to such larger offenses.

"You can touch homicides by solving robberies. You can touch homicides by solving drug dealing cases, you reduce them rather than not necessarily solve them," said Pritchard.

Fordham was convicted of grand larceny in Chesterfield juvenile court in February 2010.

Next month he has a court date for drug, gun and resisting arrest charges stemming from a state police traffic stop last December.      

Fordham will be back in this court June 5th for the murder charge.

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