The fatal shooting of a Hartford man 2 1/2 years ago on Sumner Street in the Asylum Hill neighborhood was a result of a jailhouse beef that spilled into the street, according to an arrest warrant released Tuesday.
Javon Boderick, 31, is accused of murder and criminal possession of a firearm in connection with the July 26, 2017 killing of Jordan Williams, 28, of Bloomfield, who was found fatally wounded in the parking lot of 75 Sumner St.
Hartford police Major Crimes Division detectives were on to Boderick early in their investigation, but had only one witness linking him to the crime, according to the warrant. A second witness contacted cold case investigators earlier this month and provided information that helped corroborate information detectives had already gathered. A warrant for Boderick’s arrest was signed Jan. 10.
Det. Michael Rykowski was the lead detective on the case and worked it up to the the arrest of Boderick, even though he had been transferred to the police department’s crime scene division, said Lt. Paul Cicero, the commander of the Major Crimes Division.
Boderick, who was on parole at the time of the killing for selling narcotics and criminal possession of a weapon, was apparently stalking Williams on the day he was killed. A witness told detectives that she was with Williams sitting in a car in the Sumner Street parking lot when she spotted a man with a purple towel covering his face peering around a building at Williams. She made eye contact with the man, she told police, said he looked “crazed.”
She told Williams they needed to leave “because the guy didn’t look right,” according to the warrant. The man then ran at the pair. The woman escaped by seeking help from a security guard at the nearby Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. The woman said she saw the man standing over Williams, then heard a gunshot. At one point, a hat the man was wearing fell off and the woman said she saw his hair and recognized him and was later able to identify him for police.
The woman’s account was verified by surveillance video, police said.
The medical examiner determined that Williams died of a gunshot wound to the chest.
The case got a big break earlier this month when the second witness contacted police and said Boderick had been overheard admitting he shot Williams.
“I had to smoke his ass,” the witness recalled Boderick saying, according to the warrant. “I blew that [man’s] head off cause he tried to get smart with me in jail. I caught that [man] slippin’ the parking lot.”
A witness told police that Williams had said via social media messages that he was “beefing” with Boderick and that Boderick was looking for him.
At his arraignment Tuesday, Boderick’s bail was left at $1.5 million and his case was continued to Feb. 4.
David Owens can be reached at dowens@courant.com.
