ATLANTA — A Macon woman accused of abducting and killing a 38-year-old mother in an apparently random carjacking confessed to the shooting and led police to the woman’s body, an investigator said Monday. Alexandria Renee Scott, 19, and Justin Terrell Grable, 21, were charged Sunday with felony murder in the death of Kimberly McKenzie.
Her body was discovered that afternoon in Bibb County after a carjacking Wednesday in nearby Warner Robins. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the McKenzie family,” said Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig in a telephone interview Monday. “This is a very sad and tragic case and we’ll do our best to see that justice is done.
” Bibb County Sheriff’s Lt. Paul Edwards testified during a court hearing that Scott was taken into custody on an unrelated warrant and began discussing the carjacking. Edwards said Scott led authorities to the body and confessed to the shooting. “She admitted that she was the one who held the gun in her hand when she pulled the trigger,” Edwards told a magistrate judge. The carjacking began in Warner Robins when Scott and Grable approached McKenzie’s car and asked if she had a lighter for a cigarette, Edwards testified.
McKenize was then was forced into a back seat. Police accuse Grable of driving McKenzie’s 1995 Honda Accord and say he was there when the victim was killed. Edwards said investigators are still trying to reconstruct a timeline of the carjacking and killing. Both suspects were being held without bond Monday in the Bibb County jail. It was unclear whether they had defense attorneys. Phone listings for their homes were not immediately available.
McKenzie’s family members told police they last spoke with her about 7 p.m. Wednesday when she was searching for a local business to do her taxes. McKenzie, the mother of a teenage son, worked in the dietary division of Houston Medical Center. McKenzie’s sister, Betsy McKenzie, told authorities she was talking with her sister on a cell phone when she overheard a man’s voice say, “Get in the back seat.”
The phone went dead and the last ping from it was a tower in the Macon area, said Sid Andrews, Centerville’s police chief. Macon authorities found McKenzie’s car. Hartwig, the prosecutor, said authorities are still investigating, but that McKenzie’s death appeared to be a random act of violence. An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday.
“We haven’t discovered any information that would lead us to believe the victim was specifically targeted,” he said. “It looks like a somewhat random street crime that turned tragic.”
