Bond was set at $1 million on Monday for a Clinton man charged in the December 3rd shooting death of 26 year old Cedrick Hood outside a convenience store.
32 year old Carlton Douglas Jr. made his first appearance in Clinton County Court on one count of first-degree murder, a charge which is punishable by a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Police say Douglas was arrested Sunday in the 500 block of North 13th Street. He will be back in court January 12th for a preliminary hearing.
According to the arrest affidavit:
At 6:15 p.m. Dec. 3, Clinton County Communications received a 911 call from a clerk at Hop-N-Shop, 716 S. 4th Street, about a shooting. Officers were directed to a Saturn Outlook parked by the front door. Hood, shot multiple times, was in the driver’s seat. He received emergency medical assistance from Clinton Fire personnel and was transported to Mercy One Hospital, where he later died.
A woman who went to the Hop-N-Shop with Hood said they had gone to the store with her son to get food. She said Hood stayed in the car while she and her son went inside. The woman said while she was inside the store at the ATM, she heard five shots. She said when she looked out toward the parking lot, she saw a man she knows as “C” get into the passenger side of a four-door passenger car parked next to the Saturn Outlook.
The woman said “C” was the only person she saw outside of the vehicle. She said after “C” got into the passenger side of the car, it and another vehicle parked next to it left the lot and headed west together on 8th Avenue South. The woman said “C” came to her house either the previous Saturday or Sunday and asked for Hood. She said she asked “C” if everything was OK, and he told her to tell Hood that he was looking for him.
The woman told officers another woman who is pregnant with Hood’s child also has a child with “C.” She said Hood was staying with her because he was recently kicked out of the home he shared with the pregnant woman. The woman said she believed the pregnant woman was seeing “C.” She later picked out Douglas as the man she knows as “C” through a photo line-up.
Four days earlier, a Clinton officer spoke with the pregnant woman and Douglas in an alley between 6th and 7th Avenue South, where Douglas’ car had been shot several times. The woman told the officer she believed Hood might be responsible for the damage to the vehicle. Police records show several aliases for Douglas, including “C,” according to the affidavit.
(Photo by KWQC/Clinton County Sheriff's Office)