Man sentenced in murder of witness outside Montgomery County Courthouse

A man convicted of shooting a court witness outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in 2017 has been sentenced.

Attorney General Steve Marshall says 32-year-old Josephus Boone of Montgomery County has been sentenced to life without  parole for the death of Kelvin Cooley.

On January 15, a jury found Boone guilty of one count of capital murder of shooting from a vehicle, one count of intentional murder and one count of firing a gun into an occupied building following an eight-day trial.

Cooley was shot and killed on October 23, 2017, on the corner of Lawrence and Scott streets downtown. Cooley had recently left the courthouse after he had appeared as a witness in a criminal case against Boone’s brother.

According to Marshall, evidence showed that Boone fired 17 shots from his vehicle at Cooley. Two of those shots struck First Baptist Church, with one of them going through a window, into a room and through a hallway before being lodged in a door frame. Church staff were in the building at the time of the shooting.

Boone will be sentenced on other non-capital charges at a later date.