A suspect in the death of Georgia college student Alexis Crawford was a close friend who spent time at her home, a spokesman for the family said on Sunday.
Crawford, a 21-year-old Clark Atlanta University student, was found dead Friday in a Georgia park, Atlanta Police announced. Her roommate Jordyn Jones, along with Jones’s boyfriend Barron Brantley, are in custody after one of them led police to Crawford’s body. A medical examiner determined that Crawford died of asphyxiation.
On Sunday, a spokesman for Crawford’s family revealed she and Jones had been close, and Jones had spent Thanksgiving and Easter with her.
The Crawford family “knew Jordyn, they liked Jordyn. There was never a reason to suspect that Jordyn would do anything wrong or ill to Alexis,” the Rev. Markel Hutchins told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “One family member described them as two peas in a pod. … To go from that to where we are today, it’s unthinkable, unspeakable.”
“That makes that tragedy all the more difficult to understand and reconcile,” Hutchins said. “She spent time with the family, in the family home.”
Before she went missing, Crawford had filed a police report against Brantley and went to a hospital for a rape examination, according to a police report.
According to the report, Crawford told authorities on Oct. 27 that Brantley had mistaken her for his girlfriend, Jones, and subjected her to unwanted touching and kissing.
Crawford said he rubbed her shoulder and kissed her on the neck while they drank, and when she entered a restroom alone, Brantley followed.
Jones told police she found Crawford locked inside the restroom wearing only a bra. Authorities also recovered a “pair of cut panties” in the restroom, according to the police report.
In a missing persons report filed after Crawford’s disappearance, Jones told investigators that she was “not on speaking terms” with Crawford due to a “separate incident.”
The report also refers to an unspecified “separate incident” that allegedly occurred on Oct. 26, noting that friends said Crawford felt uncomfortable sleeping in her bedroom and was staying in the living room.
Crawford’s family last heard from her on Oct. 30, police records show, and she was reported missing on Nov. 1.
After Crawford’s body was found, Brantley, and later, Jones, were charged with her murder and taken to the Fulton County Jail for booking, police said. Legal representatives for Brantley and Jones could not immediately be reached.
Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said at a Friday briefing that the discovery of Crawford’s body was “one of the saddest conclusions possible.”
Then, Shields addressed the Crawford family directly. “I am so truly sorry that we could not provide you with a better ending,” she said.
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