After eight days, the jury began deliberations in the murder case of Oglethorpe County resident Jimmy Lee Anglin, who went missing in 2017.
The trial of The State of Georgia vs. Robert David Jordan began in the Oglethorpe County Courthouse on March 21. Judge Jeffery S. Malcom presided over the case, which included charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and concealing death of another. Jordan pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
The jury heard from more than 15 witnesses and saw more than 100 exhibits in the case. Jordan, a Banks County resident, was arrested on a charge of felony murder on Sept. 16, 2019, following a search of a wooded area at 4030 Comer Road, his primary residence at the time Anglin went missing. Oglethorpe County Sgt. Jimmy Jones testified about the sequence of events that occurred during this search.
During questioning by Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Durfee for the state, Sgt. Jones said he was the first person to notice a skull, which was 457 yards from Robert Jordan's residence.
This skull was later analyzed by state witness Constance Fisher, a biologist and forensics examiner in the FBI’s DNA Casework Unit. Kinship analysis — a form of genetic profiling that is commonly used in missing person cases to find possible familial gene patterns based on DNA samples — revealed that the skull fit the DNA profile of Jimmy Anglin’s mother, Vicky Anglin, and brother, Randy Anglin, Fisher said.
Fisher said that although the available testing and bodily remains don’t allow for a definitive statement that the skull is Jimmy Anglin’s, the test results showed a very strong relationship. She has served as an expert in DNA analysis in roughly 60 federal and state courts and classified the likeliness in this particular case on the high end of probabilities she’s seen.
Defense attorney Leslie Jones addressed Fisher’s claims to a later witness by saying that the Anglin family, which was seated in the back row of the courtroom, doesn’t know for sure whether Jimmy Anglin has been positively identified.
Tracing a shotgun
The state called Sandra Reynolds, a medical examiner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, to discuss the autopsy process and her final report. The final report described the cause of death as a homicide resulting from a shotgun wound to the head and neck, most consistent with bird shot, Reynolds said.
A gun matching Reynolds’ description was retrieved by GBI special agent Mary Crawley, the lead investigator on the case. Crawley presented several phone call recordings to the jury, where Robert Jordan appears to talk in code from jail. In one excerpt, he gave his mother directions to a “letter” or “smoker” “in the woods.” He directed them to sanitize and dispose of it.
Crawley, who had real-time access to Robert Jordan’s jail calls, said she followed the directions to a wooded area in Banks County, 30 miles from Robert Jordan’s residence. That’s where she found the suspected murder weapon — a Stoeger 12-gauge shotgun — hidden beneath a blue jacket.
Leslie Jones pointed out there are no scientific results that match this exact shotgun to any evidence. The testimony of state witness Emily Bagwell, a GBI firearms technical leader, agreed with this statement. Bagwell said it is impossible because the lead balls do not touch the shotgun barrel, making it untraceable.
Testimony about a confession
Steve Hollis Jordan, brother of Robert Jordan, testified on March 24. He has ongoing charges associated with this case, including concealing the death of another and possession of a gun related to this crime.
In his testimony, Steve Jordan testified that the defendant confessed to the murder of Jimmy Anglin to their late father, who died in 2020.
During questioning by the defense, Steve Jordan discussed seeing his brother emerge from the woods following Jimmy Anglin’s disappearance. He said his brother talked about DNA, and had his pants duct-taped to his shoes and sleeves duct-taped to his gloves.
Leslie Jones accused him of withholding this information from the GBI, since he didn’t mention this until his third official interview.
Steve Jordan stated that the state only told him to tell the truth. The state backed this up with evidence that Robert Jordan had written a letter asking Steve Jordan to lie by changing his testimony to claim he had been threatened by the GBI.
Possible motive
Although the charges do not require the state to prove motive, it was mentioned that Jordan was potentially motivated by emotion when Jimmy Anglin allegedly wanted to stop giving him portions of his government checks.
The state also presented Terrie Jordan, Robert Jordan’s estranged cousin from North Carolina, who testified that the defendant tried to come stay at his home twice in the days following Jimmy Anglin’s disappearance. Terrie Jordan said he called the Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s Office two or three days after Robert Jordan left his home in North Carolina because he said he was suspicious about a possible situation.
Other witnesses included Comer’s Robert Potter, an acquaintance of the defendant. Potter testified that the defendant arrived at Potter’s home the day before Anglin went missing and told Potter he was going to “kill that damn (Jimmy Anglin).”
The defense began their closing statements on March 30 by questioning the credibility of multiple witnesses, including Potter and Steve Jordan, as well as the processes used to identify the remains. It also made claims that the state failed to investigate other potential witnesses, like Jimmy Anglin’s best friend and Steve Jordan’s previous girlfriend, Lisa Bridges, who could have potentially given alternative leads.