WATKINSVILLE — Elijah Wood’s legs began to tremble behind the RaceTrac counter as Ahkil Crumpton approached at 1:15 a.m. on March 19, 2021.
Moments earlier, Wood, covering the graveyard shift for a sick co-worker, was playfully flashing the bar code scanner laser at his phone to kill time while on a video call with his girlfriend, Jesi Jordan.
Outside, Crumpton waited. Dressed head to toe in black, face masked, hood up, he gripped a Glock 19 with a round already chambered.
Crumpton waited until customers left. Waited until Wood was alone. Then he walked in, raised the gun and fired once into Wood’s chest.
Jordan heard the blast. Saw her boyfriend’s shirt jerk. Heard him gasping for air as he collapsed.
Crumpton fled without taking a thing.
Wood died minutes later.
That is the sequence prosecutors laid out for jurors over an eight-day trial in Oconee County Superior Court.
“That is horrific,” special prosecutor Mike Morrison said Wednesday in his closing argument. “That deserves accountability.”
Morrison’s team pointed to store surveillance video and Jordan’s testimony from the live video call to make their case. They also drew on cellphone photos and videos Crumpton took of himself with the murder weapon and matching clothing. And they cited ballistic evidence tying the Glock to the crime scene.
After 38 minutes of deliberation early Wednesday afternoon, the jury found Crumpton guilty on all counts: felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Crumpton was not immediately sentenced after the verdict. The state did not seek the death penalty.
Credit: Oconee County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Oconee County Sheriff's Office
Crumpton, 28, a Philadelphia native and former University of Georgia football player, is already serving a 30-year federal sentence. He was convicted in 2024 of attempted robbery and lying on a federal firearms form.
The Georgia state prosecution, led by Morrison, a federal assistant U.S. attorney, used Crumpton’s own cellphone data to build its separate case. Crumpton had taken photos and videos of himself with the Glock 19 and wearing clothing worn by the killer, as seen on Racetrac surveillance video.
The killing of Wood, 23, drew widespread public interest as the yearlong investigation eventually landed on Crumpton, who played for the Bulldogs for two seasons from 2017 to 2018.
An agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ran a shell casing left behind at the RaceTrac through a national database. It matched shell casings from a separate Philadelphia shooting later in 2021 in which Crumpton was ruled justified and faced no charges.
Federal agents arrested Crumpton in Philadelphia in March 2022 on the Georgia murder warrant. During the search of his room, agents recovered from inside Crumpton’s 2018 Rose Bowl game backpack the Glock 19 prosecutors say was used in both the RaceTrac and Philadelphia shootings.
Juwan Taylor, Crumpton’s former UGA teammate and roommate at the time of Wood’s killing, testified during the trial that Crumpton confessed shortly after the shooting.
Bruce Harvey, Crumpton’s attorney, called Taylor a liar in his closing argument Wednesday and cited previous interviews with authorities where Taylor said he knew nothing about the crime. Harvey called much of the state’s evidence circumstantial.
“We don’t have any direct evidence of who the person is in the Racetrac,” he said.
The defense called no witnesses during the trial. Crumpton did not testify.
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