NORFOLK, Va. — Tiese Bright describes her aunt, Lillian Bond, 59, as a 'nucleus' in her family.
"Her home was always open to anyone. You know, it was a daycare center. It was a lawyer's office, it was, you know, a rehabilitation center," Bright said. "It was a homeless shelter. It was so many things to so many people."
Bright visited Bond's Trice Terrace home often.
"I walked that street from the age of three years old until that incident," Bright said to News 3's Jay Greene.
The incident Bright referred to occurred on April 19, 2016. Norfolk police found Lillian Bond shot to death in front of her home.
"All I remember is just Shock and Terror. disbelief and just feeling crushed," Bright said. "She was a target because she meant so much to so many people."
In Oct. 2020, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced six arrests in the case. Four of them—Jaquate Simpson, Kalub Shipman, Landis Jackson and Nelson Evans—faced multiple charges including murder for hire.
Prosecutors said the four were charged for their roles in running a long-time drug conspiracy, led by Simpson, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
A Norfolk-based drug dealer, according to prosecutors who was previously convicted, bought cocaine from the Simpson-led drug conspiracy.
But the drug dealer in Norfolk never paid for the delivery, prosecutors said.
As payback, prosecutors said Simpson and Jackson hired Shipman and Evans to shoot and kill someone associated with the drug dealer. Lillian Bond, the aunt of the Norfolk drug dealer, to death. She was shot while taking the trash out in broad daylight.
News
Court documents provide new information about grandmother shot taking out trash
Authorities said the Greensboro drug conspirators wanted to send a strong message.
"We literally have a recording where the leader said the next person out of that residence needs to get killed," said Brian Dugan, a Special Agent in Charge at the Norfolk FBI office in Chesapeake.
A jury convicted the four men in Spring of 2023.
All four were sentenced to life in prison in federal court in Norfolk on Friday.
Dugan, along with U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Abers and Assistant Norfolk Police Chief Michele Naughton, held a press conference on Tuesday, ahead of the sentencing.
Each agency said collaboration between local and federal law enforcement helped bring justice in this case.
"Sharing information between local state and federal authorities is happening more and more, because criminals don't think of jurisdictional boundaries before they commit crimes," U.S. Attorney Abers said. "And they should know that we as prosecutors and investigators and law enforcement are not constricted by boundaries like that either."
Tiece Bright said she hopes this part of the justice process will give way to healing in her family.
"I think they're looking forward to closure," she said. "And so hopefully, we all can heal individually and as a family now that this is coming to an end."
Any comments from the attorneys involved in this case will be added here.
