Georgia prosecutor drops three murder cases after charges of police misconduct

SAVANNAH, Georgia. – A prosecutor in the US state of Georgia has announced that she is dropping charges against six people in three pending murder cases after two Savannah police officers were charged with misconduct.

Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones, whose jurisdiction includes Savannah, said the decision came after her staff reviewed dozens of cases involving the two former police officers, who were charged in May with multiple counts of perjury and breach of their oath of office.

Jones expressed her sympathy for the families of the five victims whose cases were dropped, but stressed that police misconduct had become so bad-mouthed that they no longer had a chance to assert their claims in court.

“These cases are unlikely to be reopened and reinvestigated,” Jones said during a press conference Thursday. “Our office believes they have been compromised.”

The fallout comes two months after a Chatham County grand jury indicted former Savannah detective Ashley Wood and former police officer Darryl Repress on unrelated misconduct charges.

Repress was indicted after his firing in 2023, when an internal investigation concluded he had a relationship with an informant who was a convicted felon. His indictment accuses Repress of lying to his superiors and investigators about the relationship.

Kimberly Copeland, who is listed in court records as Repress's attorney, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.

The indictment accuses Wood of knowingly making false statements in search warrants on several counts. One of her attorneys, Keith Barber, said Wood is “completely innocent.”

“Her character is absolutely beyond reproach,” Barber said in a statement. “We were and remain fully confident that she will be completely acquitted of these charges.”

Attorneys for Marquis Parrish, who was charged with murder in a fatal 2021 shooting, accused Wood of lying when he claimed he saw Parrish on video recorded by a security camera. Parrish spent two years in prison before Jones' office dropped the charges in June.

Parrish was one of six defendants whose cases prosecutors dismissed on Thursday. She also dropped charges against two men involved in a 2016 murder in which a woman was shot after she was caught in the crossfire of what police called a shootout between gang members.

Murder charges were also dropped against three men accused of shooting two brothers and their cousin who were found dead in a Savannah home in 2015.

Jerrell Williams was one of the men charged with the triple murder. His lawyer Jonah Pine said WTOC-TV: “After more than three years of struggle and more than two years in prison, Mr. Williams is finally rehabilitated.”

Jones declined to elaborate on what led her to drop charges in all three murder cases, citing the impending prosecutions of the two former police officers.