A Chandler man charged with two felonies in a shooting that injured a teenage girl on Easter Sunday evening April 9, 2023, has been sentenced to prison.
Jodie Andrew Jones, 44, was formally charged in Lincoln County District Court April 11, 2023 with assault and battery with deadly weapon and felony discharging firearm into a dwelling.
The first count was reduced/amended to felony discharging a firearm into a dwelling and the second count was dismissed on Jan. 30 this year as Jones entered a blind plea of guilty.
A pre-sentence investigation was ordered.
Appearing recently before District Judge John Canavan for sentencing, the judge found him guilty and sentenced Jones to 20 years in the Department of Corrections, fined him $100, assessed a $100 VCA and court costs.
Judge Canavan ordered the defendant to be placed in the drug offender work camp and if Jones is successful he may petition the court for a sentence modification. Jones was instructed to report to the Court Clerk’s Office within 180 days of release from custody.
First Assistant District Attorney Adam Kallsnick prosecuted the case and Jones was represented by his attorney Jarrod Stevenson.
Jones made an initial appearance before Associate District Judge Sheila Kirk on April 11, 2023 and she set his bond at $250,000.
In Count 1, he was originally accused on April 9 without justifiable or excusable cause of shooting a teenage girl in the leg with a shotgun, which is a deadly weapon.
Count 2 originally charged Jones on the same day intentionally discharging any firearm or deadly weapon at or into any dwelling or at any building used for public or business purposes, by shooting a shotgun into a dwelling where the girl and other individuals were present.
Lincoln County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Bennett had reported the day after the shooting in 2023 that the girl was airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City with what was believed to be non-life threatening injuries and was still in the hospital late that night.
Bennett said that officers took Jones into custody and transported him to the Lincoln County Jail in Chandler.
The arrest was made without incident around midnight Easter Sunday after officers obtained a search warrant for an individual “we believed was involved in the shooting. We also recovered the shotgun we believe was used in the shooting,” Bennett explained.
Bennett said that it all unfolded about 6:46 p.m. Sunday when the 911 Communications Center received a call about an individual shooting into a house.
The caller stated that a juvenile, 16, had been struck in the upper part of her leg. He said the Special Operations Team of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office was activated.
“We were able to set up a perimeter to try and locate the suspect,” he said. “We were assisted by OHP, Sac and Fox and Iowa Tribal units, Wellston, Agra, Luther, Meeker, Stroud and Chandler Police Departments, the State Game warden from the area along with Lincoln County Emergency Management and Stroud Fire Departments.”
Bennett said Lincoln County Emergency Management and Stroud Fire provided drones in the search.
In an affidavit filed in the case, Lincoln County Sheriff Investigator Larry Stover, Sr., states that when he talked with the teenage girl’s father about the shooting he advised Stover that Jones was a relative and that he lives at the next residence to the north.
The father reportedly further advised Stover that he doesn’t associate with Jones and he hadn’t seen nor talked to him in about two years other than seeing him walk down the road.
Jones was reportedly first spotted by the girl’s mother who advised her husband to come outside. Jones was at the gate to a pasture on the northeast corner of the property carrying a dark colored shotgun and was walking toward the house, the girl’s father told Stover.
Later during the investigation, after another Lincoln County Investigator Kelly Coleman had secured a nighttime search warrant for Jones’ residence, officers recovered the 16-gauge shotgun and found two .22 caliber rifles, one loaded the other unloaded.
The shotgun was loaded with the same type of ammo that officers found a spent casing located at the victim’s residence on the front porch.
Stover reported Jones denied the shooting but seemed heavily under the influence of some type of drugs.