After hearing testimony today about a woman fatally shot in the Landsdowne Park public housing complex in June, a Roanoke General District Court judge certified a murder charge against 48-year-old Kenneth Devon Cofer Sr. to a grand jury.
 
Cofer is accused of killing 33-year-old Kendra Tionne Jones after a confrontation in an alley outside an apartment. Jones' daughter, 19-year-old Kearrah Jones, who saw the shooting and the arguments that led up to it, was the only witness to testify in the preliminary hearing.
 
Kearrah Jones said that the evening of June 26 a group of relatives and friends were gathered at a home in the 2900 block of Salem Turnpike Northwest when Cofer and another man, Dennis "Den Den" Legans, started to argue. Legans punched Cofer and the two brawled on the living room floor. Then Cofer and the woman who was with him left.
 
After midnight, Cofer returned and pulled up in a car behind the apartment. He had brought what looked like a sawed-off shotgun, Kearrah Jones testified. The woman he had left with earlier was sitting in the passenger seat, and two other people were in the back seat. Cofer started to get out of the car but his passengers urged him to get back in, Jones said.
 
As Legans left through the front door, Kendra Jones took a butcher’s knife from the kitchen and went out the back door toward the car. After telling Cofer, "Don't bring up a gun if you're not going to use it," she went to the passenger window and started punching at the woman, one of her cousins. Jones yelled at her for letting Cofer come back to the house. She walked alongside the car, still yelling, as Cofer started to drive off. Then Cofer stopped, stepped out of the car and shot Jones in the stomach, her daughter said.
 
Assistant Roanoke Public Defender Amanda Shaw asked Kearrah Jones if her mother had waved the knife or stabbed at the car with it, or if her mother had verbally threatened Cofer's life. Jones said she never saw or heard her mother do any of those things.

Friday’s action by substitute Judge David Damico means the murder charge against Jones now will go before a Roanoke Circuit Court grand jury. The grand jury will decide whether to issue an indictment against Jones. If it does so, then the case will be proceed toward a trial in Roanoke Circuit Court.