In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: September 17, 2024

S24A0647. JONES v. THE STATE.

 ELLINGTON, Justice.

Christopher Lane Jones appeals his convictions for malice 

murder and concealing the death of another in connection with the 

shooting deaths of Steven James Ward and Kristian Bell.1 Jones 

asserts on appeal that there was insufficient evidence to support his 

1 Ward and Bell went missing on or around January 20, 2019, and their 

bodies were located on or around February 9, 2019. On May 2, 2019, a Coffee 

County grand jury indicted Jones on one count of malice murder (Count 1) and 

one count of concealing the death of another (Count 3) in connection with Bell’s 

death and one count of malice murder (Count 2) and one count of concealing 

the death of another (Count 4) in connection with Ward’s death. Jones was 

tried before a jury in September 2021, and the jury found him guilty on all 

counts. The trial court sentenced Jones to life in prison without the possibility 

of parole on Count 1; life in prison without the possibility of parole on Count 2, 

to run consecutively to Count 1; ten years in prison on Count 3, to run 

consecutively to Count 2; and ten years in prison on Count 4, to run 

consecutively to Count 3. Jones’s trial counsel filed a timely motion for new 

trial on September 28, 2021, and new counsel filed an “Amended Motion for 

New Trial and Reversal of Convictions” on December 19, 2023. Following a 

hearing, the trial court denied Jones’s motion for new trial, as amended, on 

January 26, 2024. Jones filed a timely notice of appeal, and this case was 

docketed to the April 2024 term of this Court. 
2

convictions and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.

We affirm for the reasons set forth below.

1. In January 2019, Jones was living in a house on Deep Woods 

Road in Nicholls, Georgia, with Sarah Spruce, Mikhaela Anderson,

Ward, and Bell. After the residents received an eviction notice 

directing them to vacate the Deep Woods Road house by January 20, 

2019, they began moving their belongings off the property. Dedrick 

Johnson and his friend Joseph Burch helped with the move because 

some of the residents of the house, including Jones, planned to move 

to Johnson’s property. 

Burch testified that one night, he and Johnson drove to 

Waycross to retrieve a trailer to haul larger items from the Deep 

Woods Road house, while Jones, Ward, and Bell remained behind at 

the house. Burch said that when he and Johnson returned to the 

house later that night, Jones took them around back and showed 

them Ward’s and Bell’s bodies. One body was under the back porch 

and the other was under the left side of the house. Jones told Burch 

and Johnson that he had killed Ward and Bell. Jones told them that 
3

he first shot Ward in the stomach and then shot Bell after she came 

out of the house. Burch testified that he had previously seen Jones 

with a shotgun and that there also was a Taurus pistol at the Deep 

Woods Road house. 

Jones then directed Burch and Johnson to move the bodies, and 

while Jones walked around nearby, Burch and Johnson cut off the 

victims’ clothes, put them in a bag, and dug a hole. Burch testified 

that he did what Jones told him to do because he was concerned for 

his own safety; he said he “didn’t believe that [he] would make it 

out.” Burch and Johnson put Bell’s body in the hole first, and Ward’s 

body was placed on top after Jones pulled it out from under the 

house by the neck and dragged it over. Burch testified that Jones 

had to stomp on Ward’s body to make it fit in the hole. Jones gave 

Burch and Johnson a shower curtain to put over the bodies, which 

they then covered with dirt. They put bricks over the area to make 

it look like a firepit and to hide the hole. The three men then finished 

packing up the trailer and went to Johnson’s house. The next day 

Burch drove Jones back to the house to get more furniture, and 
4

Jones directed Burch to first clean everything off the back porch, 

including blood and “brains,” which he did.2

Other witnesses corroborated much of Burch’s testimony. 

Anderson testified that Jones told her he shot and killed Ward and 

Bell and “slung” their bodies under the house until Johnson and 

Burch returned. Spruce likewise testified that Jones told her he 

killed Ward and Bell. Among other things, Jones told Spruce that he 

shot Bell in the head, that he shot Ward even though Ward begged 

for his life, and that he had to cut off Ward’s head to fit him in the 

hole. 3 And a third witness, David Wade Reliford, who knew Jones 

only casually, testified that Jones told him he killed Ward and Bell 

and had to “clean their brains up” afterward.

When Bell’s family reported Bell as missing and Ward could 

not be located, the Coffee County Sheriff’s office opened a missing 

2 Burch was charged with two counts of concealing a death and given a plea 

offer to serve two and one-half years of incarceration, which he had completed at the 

time of trial, and to spend ten years on probation in exchange for his truthful 

testimony at Jones’s trial. However, Burch did not have a plea deal in place when he 

first told investigators what had happened to Bell and Ward.

3 No evidence was presented at trial showing that Ward’s head had been 

removed from his body.
5

persons investigation. Police searched the Deep Woods Road 

property without locating the missing pair, but volunteer searchers

led by Bell’s father later found Ward’s and Bell’s bodies buried under 

a fire pit and covered with a shower curtain. Autopsies later showed 

that Ward’s body had several gunshot wounds, including to his torso, 

and that Bell’s body had two gunshot wounds, including one to the 

back of her head. Police also recovered a number of .40-caliber spent 

shell casings from the property, which were later matched to a .40-

caliber Taurus pistol found inside Johnson’s house. Burch testified, 

however, that, before the police conducted that search, he and 

Johnson had found the Taurus pistol in a shed where Jones stayed 

following the move. Burch and Johnson discovered the pistol after 

Jones vacated the premises.4

Jones testified in his own defense at trial and denied killing 

4 Jones was eventually located and arrested by U. S. Marshals in 

Oceanside, California. Jones was interviewed by Coffee County Sheriff’s 

investigators while in California, after he signed a form waiving his rights. 

During that interview, Jones did not deny killing Ward and Bell and indicated 

that he was scared that if he told his side of the story, he would never see his 

son again. This interview was played for the jury. 
6

Ward and Bell. He also denied telling Reliford that he had 

committed the murders. He said that he did not know that Bell and 

Ward were dead until he saw it on Facebook when he was in 

California. Nevertheless, on cross-examination, Jones admitted that 

he did not like Bell and had problems with Ward, because Ward lied 

and blamed Jones “for certain things.”

2. Jones asserts that the State failed to present sufficient 

evidence under the standard set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 

U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979), to prove 

that Jones committed the crimes of which he was convicted. 

On appeal, a criminal defendant is no longer presumed 

innocent, and we review whether the evidence presented 

at trial, when viewed in the light most favorable to the 

jury’s verdicts, enabled the jury to find the defendant 

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which 

[he] was convicted. 

Fitts v. State, 312 Ga. 134, 141 (3) (859 SE2d 79) (2021) (citing 

Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319 (III) (B)). “This limited review leaves to the 

jury the resolution of conflicts in the evidence, the weight of the 

evidence, the credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences to 
7

be made from basic facts to ultimate facts.” (Citation and 

punctuation omitted.) Wilkerson v. State, 317 Ga. 242, 245 (1) (892 

SE2d 737) (2023).

Under Georgia law, “[a] person commits the offense of murder 

when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or 

implied, causes the death of another human being.” OCGA § 16-5-1 

(a). And “[a] person who, by concealing the death of any other person, 

hinders a discovery of whether or not such person was unlawfully 

killed is guilty of a felony.” OCGA § 16-10-31. 

Jones contends the evidence was insufficient to support his 

convictions for these crimes because the State failed to present any 

physical evidence connecting Jones with either the Taurus firearm 

used in the murders or the shovels that the State contended were 

used to conceal Ward’s and Bell’s bodies. However, “the fact that the 

State did not produce certain types of evidence does not mean that 

the evidence was insufficient.” Grant v. State, 319 Ga. 490, 494 (2) 

(a) (904 SE2d 338) (2024). “Although the State is required to prove 

its case with competent evidence, there is no requirement that it 
8

prove its case with any particular sort of evidence.” Plez v. State, 300 

Ga. 505, 506 (1) (796 SE2d 704) (2017).

The evidence at trial showed that Johnson and Burch left Jones 

alone with Bell and Ward at the Deep Woods Road house one night 

in January 2019. When Johnson and Burch returned to the house 

hours later, Jones showed them Ward’s and Bell’s dead bodies and 

said that he had shot them. Three other witnesses testified that 

Jones later confessed to shooting and killing Ward and Bell. After 

the shooting, Jones confessed to Anderson that he had killed the 

pair, then “slung” the bodies under the house until Johnson and 

Burch returned. Shortly thereafter he confessed to Reliford that he 

had killed them and that he had “to clean their brains up,” and

Burch also testified to cleaning up brain matter at Jones’s direction. 

After Jones fled to California, he told Spruce that he had killed Ward

even though Ward begged for his life and that he shot Bell in the 

head. The autopsies showed that Ward’s body had multiple gunshot

wounds, including to his torso, and Bell’s body had two gunshot

wounds, including one to the back of her head. 
9

Each confession was direct evidence of Jones’s guilt, and we 

conclude that Jones’s multiple confessions along with the other 

corroborating and supporting evidence at trial was more than 

sufficient to support his murder convictions. See Baker v. State, 319 

Ga. 456, 460 (1) (902 SE2d 645) (2024) (defendant’s confession 

corroborated by various evidence, including the circumstances 

under which the victims were discovered and evidence of defendant’s 

consciousness of guilt was sufficient to support his murder 

conviction); Thrift v. State, 310 Ga. 499, 502 (1) (852 SE2d 560)

(2020) (defendant’s confessions to killing victim and disposing of 

victim’s body, made to various witnesses, were direct evidence of 

guilt and those confessions, along with corroborating evidence, were 

sufficient to support his murder conviction).

Regarding the charges of concealing the death of another, the 

evidence showed that Jones told Johnson and Burch to dig a hole, 

and they put Ward’s and Bell’s bodies in it. The men then filled the 

hole with dirt and disguised the area to look like a firepit to conceal 

the bodies. Ward’s and Bell’s bodies were later found in the 
10

makeshift firepit, under a shower curtain. And although Burch and 

Johnson helped to bury Ward’s and Bell’s bodies, the evidence was 

sufficient to convict Jones of being a party to the crime of concealing 

their deaths. Under OCGA § 16-2-20 (b) (3), a person is a party to a 

crime if he “[i]ntentionally aids or abets in the commission of the 

crime.” The evidence showed that Jones led Burch and Johnson to 

the bodies; directed them to dispose of them; pulled Ward’s body over 

to the hole and stomped on it to make it fit; and provided Johnson 

and Burch with the shower curtain to put over the bodies.5 See 

Nelms v. State, 285 Ga. 718, 720 (1) (681 SE2d 141) (2009) (evidence 

sufficient to support both defendants’ convictions for concealing a 

death where they both dragged body away from crime scene and 

5 Jones further asserts that the witnesses to his confessions were all 

“admitted liars” and notes that police found the Taurus pistol and the shovels 

they contend were used in the crime at Johnson’s house, and Johnson was 

convicted of concealing Bell’s and Ward’s deaths. However, it was up to the 

jury to resolve any conflicts in the evidence and determine witness credibility.

See Wilson v. State, __ Ga. __, __ (1) (2024 Ga. LEXIS 168, at *8 (Case No. 

S24A0526, Aug. 13, 2024) (jury is to determine witness credibility and to

resolve any evidentiary conflicts and “[b]ecause the jury’s findings were 

sufficiently supported by the evidence, we will not disturb those findings.”

(citation and punctuation omitted)).
11

covered it with leaves to hide it).

Accordingly, this enumeration fails.

3. Jones contends that he received ineffective assistance of trial 

counsel. Jones asserts, without further elaboration, that his trial 

counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel “by, inter alia, 

spending inadequate time conferring with him and failing to confer 

effectively with him so as to allow Mr. Jones to meaningfully 

participate in his own defense; failing to meaningfully review the 

evidence with the Defendant prior to trial; failing to adequately 

cross-examine witnesses; failing to pursue and present exculpatory 

evidence by, inter alia, failing to call witnesses with relevant 

testimony favorable to the defense; and by failing to adequately 

prepare the Defendant’s case for trial, in addition to other 

deficiencies that the evidence may show.” He argues, generally, that 

“[b]ut for these deficiencies, trial counsel would have succeeded in 

raising reasonable doubt as to Mr. Jones’s guilt, or otherwise 

affected or influenced the jury favorably toward Mr. Jones.”

However, Jones made no attempt to carry the substantial
12

burden required of him under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 

668, 687-695 (III) (104 SCt 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984), for 

establishing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. To prevail 

on a such claim, “a defendant generally must show that counsel’s 

performance was deficient, and that the deficient performance 

resulted in prejudice to the defendant.” Perkins v. State, 313 Ga. 885, 

901 (5) (873 SE2d 185) (2022) (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-

695). To meet the deficiency prong of the Strickland test, Jones was 

required to show “that trial counsel performed his duties in an 

objectively unreasonable way, considering all the circumstances and 

in the light of prevailing professional norms.” Pauldo v. State, 317 

Ga. 433, 436 (1) (893 SE2d 633) (2023). “Establishing deficient 

performance is no easy showing, as the law recognizes a strong 

presumption that counsel performed reasonably, and [Jones bore] 

the burden of overcoming this presumption.” (Citation omitted.) Id. 

“To satisfy the prejudice prong, a defendant must establish a 

reasonable probability that, in the absence of counsel’s deficient 

performance, the result of the trial would have been different.” 
13

Perkins, 313 Ga. at 901 (5) (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694). “A 

reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine 

confidence in the outcome.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.)

Sullivan v. State, 308 Ga. 508, 510 (2) (84 SE2d 5) (2020). Therefore, 

a defendant’s burden of establishing prejudice under Strickland “is 

a heavy one.” Young v. State, 305 Ga. 92, 97 (5) (823 SE2d 774)

(2019).

Here, although Jones makes generalized assertions of his trial 

counsel’s alleged failings, he fails to show in what respect his 

counsel’s performance was deficient. He provides no record citation, 

argument, or legal authority to support any claim of deficient 

performance. For example, he fails to explain how a reasonable 

probability existed that the outcome of his trial would have been 

different, or even how he could have participated more 

“meaningfully” in his trial, if his counsel had spent additional time 

conferring with him or more “meaningfully” reviewed the evidence 

with him before trial. Moreover, Jones identifies no instance where 

his trial counsel failed to adequately cross-examine any witness nor
14

does he show any exculpatory evidence his counsel failed to pursue 

or present through witness testimony or otherwise, as he proffered 

no such omitted evidence at the hearing on his motion for new trial.

And without establishing deficient performance by counsel, Jones 

cannot show any prejudice resulting from such performance. 

Accordingly, Jones failed to establish his claims of ineffective 

assistance of counsel. See, e.g., Pauldo, 317 Ga. at 437 (1) (a). (“It is 

well established that a defendant fails to establish prejudice under 

Strickland when he merely contends that trial counsel was deficient 

for failing to present [witness testimony], without also presenting 

evidence at the motion-for-new-trial hearing about what the 

[witness] would have testified to at trial.”); Young v. State, 317 Ga. 

57, 64 (3) (b) (891 SE2d 827) (2023) (where defendant provided no 

citation to the record in support of his claims of trial counsel’s 

inadequate preparation and trial performance, including during 

counsel’s examination of witnesses, he failed to meet his burden of 

showing deficient performance); Allen v. State, 317 Ga. 1, 11 (4) (b) 

(890 SE2d 700) (2023) (To make the required affirmative showing of 
15

the prejudicial effect of trial counsel’s failure to call a witness, 

“[e]ither the uncalled witness must testify or the defendant must 

introduce a legally recognized substitute for the uncalled witness’s 

testimony.” (citation and punctuation omitted)); Payne v. State, 314 

Ga. 322, 334 (3) (g) (877 SE2d 202) (2022) (holding counsel was not 

deficient where appellant “offer[ed] no evidence in support of this 

claim other than suggesting that additional investigation could have 

led to exculpatory evidence”).

Finally, Jones asserts that we should consider the cumulative 

effect of his counsel’s alleged deficiencies and grant him a new trial. 

See Pritchett v. State, 314 Ga. 767, 787 (4) (879 SE2d 436) (2022).

As we determined above, although Jones attempted to assert 

multiple claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, he failed to carry 

his burden of showing deficient performance by his trial counsel in 

any respect. Accordingly, Jones cannot show cumulative prejudice 

in this case sufficient to warrant a new trial. See Scott v. State, 309 

Ga. 764, 771 (3) (d) (848 SE2d 448) (2020) (“Assessing cumulative 

prejudice is necessary only when multiple errors have been 
16

shown.”). 

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.