ATLANTA — It's been roughly two-and-a-half years since Alexis Crawford went missing on Halloween day 2019 before her body was found a little more than a week later, stuffed into a trash bin and dumped in a park in Decatur.
A halting legal process since then involving the pair accused of murdering the Clark Atlanta Student - her roommate and close friend, Jordyn Jones, and Jones' then-boyfriend Barron Brantley - will resume next week.
A motions hearing is scheduled for next Friday, May 20. A Fulton County judge will hear several arguments on pre-trial motions, including one by the defense teams for Jones and Brantley asking for a so-called Jackson-Denno hearing - which would determine if their statements to police after the killing, in which they admitted parts of their involvement, can be used against them or not.
The brutal murder in 2019 devastated the Atlanta University Center community and sent a shudder both through Atlanta and around the country.
According to detectives, both Jones and Brantley admitted under questioning at least parts of their roles in the crime.
At a preliminary hearing, a detective testified to the callousness of the murder, revealing details which included Brantley allegedly strangling Crawford while Jones allegedly held a plastic bag over her head.
The detective said that Brantley told him he knew Crawford was dead because she stopped breathing after she'd been "struggling to breathe and she had sounds of agony."
He was also accused of raping her just days prior to the murder.
"The pain we feel from the cold-blooded murder of Alexis at the hands of Jordyn Jones, whom we welcomed into our home on countless occasions, and Jordyn's boyfriend Barron Brantley cannot be understood unless you’ve been through what we're going through right now," a family statement at the time said. "She and Barron admitted what they did to my baby and they should never ever get out of jail for a single day."
Both were denied bond in the aftermath of their arrests, in the last significant legal proceedings in the case in early 2020. The pandemic then upended the legal process in the case, as it did for countless others.
It's not clear yet when a trial might finally begin in the murder case.
The motions hearing is scheduled for next Friday at 9:30 a.m. before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Belinda E. Edwards.