NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – Four Greensboro men have been convicted for their role in a murder-for-hire that left a Norfolk resident dead.
According to a press release, on April 13, 2016, a Norfolk-based drug dealer didn’t pay $81,000 for a multi-kilogram delivery of cocaine.
Jaquate Simpson, 38, and Landis Jackson, 38, were the leaders of a long-running criminal enterprise responsible for distributing hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into central North Carolina and the Hampton Roads region.
Simpson and Jackson’s organization retaliated by hiring Nine Trey gang member Kalub Shipman, 35, to kill the next person to leave the house associated with where the Norfolk dealer had been known to be.
Shipman first traveled to Virginia within hours of being offered the murder-for-hire contract with another gang member.
They conducted surveillance of the home and went back to Greensboro.
Shipman recruited Nelson Evans, 32, to help in the murder-for-hire, offering him a portion of the $10,000 Shipman would get upon completion.
On April 18, 2016, Shipman and Evans traveled to Virginia.
On April 19, around 11:30 a.m. the two men entered the Ingleside neighborhood in Norfolk and shot 59-year-old Lillian Bond as she was taking out the trash on Trice Terrace.
Bond had been an employee of the Children’s Hospital for King’s Daughters for approximately 20 years.
Simpson was charged with continuing criminal enterprise, murder while engaged in continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics conspiracy, murder while engaged in a drug-trafficking offense, distribution of cocaine, use of a firearm resulting in death, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and murder for hire.
Jackson was charged with continuing criminal enterprise, murder while engaged in continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics conspiracy, murder while engaged in a drug-trafficking offense, distribution of cocaine, use of a firearm resulting in death, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and murder for hire.
Shipman was charged with murder while engaged in a drug-trafficking offense, use of a firearm resulting in death, conspiracy to commit murder for hire, murder for hire and felon in possession of a firearm.
Evans was charged with the use of a firearm resulting in death, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and murder for hire.
All four men face mandatory life sentences when sentenced.