Man charged in five murders arraigned

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September 20, 2012

Man charged in five murders arraigned

By Alan Mauldin alan.mauldin@gaflnews.com CNHI The Tifton Gazette Thu Sep 20, 2012, 07:24 AM EDT

MOULTRIE — The alleged triggerman in the 2006 slaying of five people was in a Colquitt County courtroom on Wednesday for an arraignment hearing.

Alexander Woods III, 34, of Valdosta, one of three people originally charged in the quintuple homicide that shocked the community, could be tried in early 2013.

Woods temporarily was transferred to Colquitt County Jail from the Colquitt County Correctional Institution, where he is serving a five-year sentence for a Lowndes County drug conviction.

He was charged in November 2010 with five counts of murder, but the formal charges were made at Wednesday’s hearing.

One of the defendants, Johnny Jerry Thompson, pleaded guilty in November 2011 to five counts of felony murder. He had been scheduled for trial that same month.

Thompson, of Nashville, was sentenced to serve a life term on one of the five counts, with Superior Court Judge Richard M. Cowart suspending sentencing on the other four counts pending the adjudication of his codefendants’ cases. Thompson is expected to be a witness at any trials related to the case.

The third defendant is Wilma Ann Yvonne Stover, also of Nashville.

The three were accused of multiple murders in the Nov. 8, 2004, deaths of Betty Faye Watts, 50; Katrina Darlene Watts “Tina” Resendez, 29; Juan Carlos Resendez, 3; Liliana Alegria Aguilar, 30; and 24-year-old Jaime Cruze Resendez.

Since Thompson was indicted in December 2006 he and Stover both served federal sentences on drug charges, delaying the court date.

The gruesome scene was found by the Resendezes’ nephew, who discovered them shot to death Nov. 8, 2004, when he came home from school. Juan Carlos was thought at first to be missing, but from what investigators pieced together, it appears that Jaime Resendez was trying to hide his son between the headboard and mattress under blankets.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said Jaime Resendez alone was believed to be active in marijuana trafficking at the time of his death. He and his wife were arrested in 2003 in what at the time was described as the largest marijuana bust in Berrien County history.

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