ATLANTA — A case of mistaken identity ended with a gang murder. A young mother was gunned down in her car with her baby just inches away as she took her final breaths.
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Jamal Baker made many mistakes on the morning of May 18, 2024, and murder was the biggest. A mistaken identity murder after Baker, Young Slime Life—or YSL gang member and two co-conspirators, all caught on camera in hoodies, mistook the car in which 21-year-old Ne’Jha Sapphire Cox was riding with her two-year-old son for someone else’s car.
They fired more than three dozen times, says the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office Gang Unit Senior Asst. District Attorney Amanda Green.
“The child was there the whole time, and he was able to observe his mother bleed out until she was no longer alive,” Green said.
“She has absolutely nothing to do with gang violence or gang life. She’s not a criminal,” District Attorney Fani Willis said.
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Green says almost a year to the day after the shooting, a jury convicted Baker of murder, gang charges and more.
“...life without parole. Judge Farmer sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole plus 65 years,” Green explained.
Green says intelligence suggests the black Nissan in which Cox, her baby and a driver travelled was mistaken for a blue Nissan used by a man with a hit out on him. A bounty because of suspicions he shot up a music video shoot for music superstar Dominique Jones, known as Lil Baby, on Verbena Street in Atlanta four days earlier.
Green says Lil Baby was not mentioned at trial other than in jury selection and who may have taken it upon themselves to order the possible hit remains a mystery.
“The district attorney’s office has absolutely no evidence that Lil Baby had any connection to this hit. Nothing could be corroborated that he knew about it or that he directed it in any way. So we don’t have any evidence that he had any part in this young lady’s demise or the trauma that her child will suffer for the rest of their life,” Willis said.
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Green says video shows Baker in a light colored hoodie and two others as they walk toward an apartment complex to look for their intended target. Then they walked around a corner toward a woodline where they lay in wait and the car carrying Cox came out of the complex into an ambush.
“When that vehicle passes that area of the wood line, it is shot up and we have 39 casings,” Green explained.
Records indicate Baker was convicted of two gang charges and acquitted of two more, but all describe YSL as a criminal street gang.
“It’s no joke when a two-year-old watches their 21-year-old mother die,” Willis said.
Green says Baker’s two co-defendants are scheduled for trial this month.
A spokesperson for Baker released the following statement to Channel 2 Action News:
“The Defender Council’s Appellate Office represents Mr. Jamal Runtae Baker. A team of skilled appeals attorneys, investigators, and administrators is working in support of the new trial motion and looks forward to zealously representing Mr. Baker in future filings and court proceedings, but must decline further comment at this time.”
Channel 2 Action News has also reached out to Lil Baby’s attorney, but has not yet heard back.
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