An admitted accomplice to the murders of 14-year-old Larry Ordway and 16-year-old Maurice Gordon testified Wednesday that the teen brothers were stabbed to death at lead defendant Brice “Rambo” Rhodes‘ home in May 2016, weeks after Rhodes carried out the murder of 40-year-old Christopher Jones under the erroneous belief that there was a bounty on Jones’ life.
Anjuan Carter was just 15 years old when he met Brice Rhodes, now 33, the witness testified in a Louisville, Ky., courtroom on day two of Rhodes’ triple murder trial. Carter, who pleaded guilty in 2016 to three counts of facilitation to murder, said he was in the car on the night of May 4, 2016, when Rhodes opened fire and killed Jones in a drive-by shooting that led to the murders of Larry and Maurice weeks later.
Carter said he was a passenger, Maurice Gordon was driving the vehicle, and Brice Rhodes was in the back seat behind Gordon at the time of the shooting. The witness testified that he met Larry Ordway and Maurice Gordon at school and that they would hang out together and “hook up” with girls around town.
He said he met rapper “Rambo” through Maurice and Larry in 2016 and had only known Rhodes for a matter of weeks before Jones, Ordway, and Gordon’s deaths. The witness said he didn’t think Rhodes was serious at first when the defendant allegedly said Carter, Ordway, and Gordon could get paid to kill someone if they could only find a gun.
Carter was asked when he realized Rhodes was serious.
“The night we actually did it,” Carter said, it being the killing of 40-year-old Christopher Jones in the drive-by shooting.
The witness said the group in the car went to Maurice and Larry’s house with Brice Rhodes after the shooting and that they didn’t talk about the murder, but Carter’s truck was burned on Brice’s suggestion, in case the vehicle was caught on camera.
They “just let it go,” Carter said of the shooting, for which no one got paid because Christopher Jones was the wrong target.
Just a couple of weeks later, Carter testified, there was an argument. Carter said he overheard a phone call where Larry and Maurice’s mother was speaking with Rhodes, and that Rhodes believed Maurice Gordon had talked about the Jones murder.
While drinking and smoking at Rhodes’ home on May 22, 2016, an argument broke out and Maurice picked up a knife “in an aggressive manner,” Carter said. Brice Rhodes took the “big combat knife” from Maurice and “smacked him.” Rhodes said he was going to “violate” Maurice, meaning “inflict pain” as a matter of discipline.
Anjuan Carter, Maurice Gordon, Larry Ordway, Brice Rhodes (images via of Carter and Rhodes via Law&Crime Network; images of Gordon and Ordway via Facebook)
Rhodes and co-defendants Jacorey Taylor, Tieren Coleman, and Carter (who have all, except for Rhodes, pleaded guilty to their roles in the murders), the witness said, put Larry and Maurice in a bathroom inside of Rhodes’ home and the rest of them “took a vote” on whether or not the teen boys should die.
Brice Rhodes called for the vote and Carter was the only one to say no, the witness said.
“He put a sock in his mouth, tied his hands behind his back, and put a hat over his head,” Carter said, detailing that Brice Rhodes did this to Maurice Gordon in the living room. “He started hitting him in the chest at first” with fists.
Then co-defendant Tieren Coleman handed Rhodes a knife, and Rhodes repeatedly stabbed Maurice — who was on his knees — in the torso, Carter said.
Carter said that Larry Ordway was then brought out of the bathroom. Asked what was going through his mind at the time, Carter said that he was just trying to save himself. If he didn’t go along with Rhodes and the others, he felt he would have suffered the “same fate” as Larry and Maurice.
“[Larry] started making noises when he started getting stabbed,” Carter said, detailing that Larry was also on his knees, hands bound with a belt, and a sock in his mouth.
The witness said he didn’t know exactly how many times either of the victims was stabbed before their deaths, but Carter said he stabbed Larry Ordway three times after he was already dead.
Carter explained that he was handed the knife so he would be implicated in the killings and it “would be on all of us.”
“We put them in totes” and the plan was to bring the bins with the bodies to an abandoned house where they would be burned, Carter said.
While Carter stayed behind to clean up blood in Brice Rhodes’ living room all night, the victims were set on fire at a separate location, the witness said.
Testimony in the Rhodes case is ongoing. Watch day 3 here on the Law&Crime Network.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
