Alexander Woods III.

Jurors in a murder trial of Alexander Woods got a crash course in the marijuana business when a 2004 mass murder case got under way on Tuesday in Colquitt County Superior Court.

The first witness sprinkled his testimony with terms like “stash houses” where pot was stored, “fronting” in which a dealer sells drugs on credit, and decoy vehicles used in convoys designed to protect the car containing marijuana as it was transported from Texas to South Georgia.

Jerry Johnny Thompson, of Nashville, Ga., who has pleaded guilty to five counts of murder, gave his version of events from Nov. 8, 2004. On that day Jaime Resendez and wife Katrina “Tina” Resendez, her mother Betty Faye Watts, 3-year-old Juan Carlos Resendez and their housekeeper, Liliana Alegria Aguilar, were all slain at the couple’s home on Highway 37 just outside of Moultrie not far from Mount Olive Baptist Church.

Thompson was on the stand for two hours Tuesday morning and again for more than an hour in the afternoon.

Jurors also heard from two of Tina Resendez’s children, then 7 and 8, who found the bodies when they walked into the house after being dropped off by the school bus.

Thompson’s testimony covered his becoming involved in making trips to Texas with Jaime Resendez and another man. The trips he described included frequent targeting by law enforcement, who on one occasion seized $67,000 as they were headed to Texas to make a pick-up, but they were turned loose without charges.

It was shortly after a trip that began on Oct. 23, 2004, that Thompson’s luck with the law began unraveling for good. Driving the third car in a convoy returning home, he saw the drug truck being stopped by police and he turned around. He followed after the truck got off at an exit and cruised past a gas station where the driver of the truck stopped. Police stopped his truck in which his girlfriend, Wilma Ann Yvonne Stover, was the passenger.

Thompson testified that Jaime Resendez owed money to a man named Hector who was his (Resendez’s) supplier in the Houston, Texas, area. Jaime Resendez, who was in the lead car, was not stopped, and one man from the marijuana truck ran and eluded capture, leaving Thompson, Stover and the other man from the drug truck locked up in Texas.

Thompson said he was visited in jail by an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who told him that if he helped bag Hector he would get a one-year sentence.

“I agreed,” he said. “He told me to go back home. He told me to act normal.”

Thompson, Stover and the other man were released and Thompson said he was told to resume his drug-dealing lifestyle in Berrien County in order to avoid suspicion.

Thompson said he spoke with Jaime Resendez after returning home and they agreed to get more marijuana “after things cooled off.” However, Jaime Resendez began avoiding Hector’s calls, and Hector finally told Thompson to pay him a visit to tell him that he must get in contact with him, he testified.

Thompson said that he enlisted Anthony Davis, whom he knew as “Big Amp,” a man who collected from those who owed Thompson money for marijuana. On Nov. 8 he met Davis, who has since died, who was with another man that he never met until that day. He identified him as Woods.

After arming the two men with two protective vests, an AK47 rifle and a “cheap 9 mm” pistol near Reed Bingham State Park , he said he showed them the location of the house and continued driving with Stover in his truck.

A short time later, he said, Davis called him and said to get back to the house. When he walked inside the kitchen door from the carport he saw Jaime Resendez dead and Woods holding the pistol to Aguilar’s head in an attempt to find cash, he said. Thompson said he saw Woods remove a thick rope chain with a medallion that said “Big Daddy” off Jaime Resendez’s body.

He used a radio to call Stover in his truck and told her to leave. He said he tried to talk Woods and Davis out of the house and eventually walked outside alone.

When the other two came outside he drove Davis’ Ford Expedition to a mobile home in Berrien County where they changed clothes and separated, he said. While there Davis and Woods divided $2,000, Thompson said.

On the way to Warner Robins, he said, he made two stops, the first near Tifton where he threw the clothing and vests into a dumpster. The second was an exit off I-75 where he threw the guns in a swamp. He later brought officers to the place, where an AK47 was found.

Under questioning from Woods’ attorney, Thompson denied telling a fellow jail inmate that the last time he saw Davis he “smelled like smoked ham” alluding to Davis’ body being burned after his death. Thompson also admitted telling law enforcement a number of different stories about the case over the years.

Thompson has been sentenced to a life term in one of the murders and will be sentenced later on the other four counts. He also faces sentencing in a federal case that could land him a 27-year sentence.

In his testimony, he said he never saw anyone actually shot that day and that Woods later told him he had to shoot 3-year-old Juan Resendez because the toddler kept looking at him and could possibly identify him.

Stover’s story about the trip to Texas during which they were arrested matched Thompson’s. It also matched much of Thompson’s account of giving weapons to Davis and another man she did not know at the state park and leading them to the house.

Thompson had earlier told jurors that he and Stover communicated frequently while in custody.

The fourth witness of the day, Devincint Douglas Sr., who like Thompson was in an orange Colquitt County Jail jump suit, said that he got a phone call in October 2011 in which Woods told him to pass a message on to a female friend of his. The message was to tell the woman to “get rid of that necklace (because) that was all that they had” to tie him to a crime.

Douglas said he never knew the nature of the case Woods was referring to and that Woods did not give him any details. He did not give the woman the message, and after being arrested contacted investigators to share the information.

Douglas’ refusal to respond to subpoenas and his eluding capture by law enforcement was the reason given for the trial being postponed once in 2012 and again earlier this year. When he was found he was arrested and held at the jail until the trial.

Javier and Jorge Martinez told of finding their mother Tina Resendez and stepfather Jaime dead after being released from school. Afterward they, along with their younger sister, tried to wave down someone on the road to help them.

“I walked up to the door and I knew something was wrong,” Javier Martinez said. “Usually the door was locked.”

After going inside he “saw my mom and my dad lying on the floor. I walked in a little. My mom, her hands were behind her back and she was face down.”

Testimony resumes today.