CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — A man accused of shooting and killing his best friend told a judge he would not testify in his own defense.
Channel 2’s Tom Jones was in the courtroom when the jury in the murder trial of Joe Link, now 75, saw the police interrogation video where he described fighting over a gun with the victim.
A Clayton County jury will hear closing arguments in the case on Friday morning and then begin deliberating.
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On Thursday, they heard a judge ask Link about the one year he spent in college before dropping out.
“Anymore college?” Judge Greg McGarity asked.
“No,” Link responded in court.
“I’m done with school, too,” the judge said to laughter.
Link smiled at the judge’s sense of humor, but he struck a more serious tone when the judge asked him if he planned to testify in his own defense.
“What is your decision, sir?” the judge asked.
“I wish not to testify against myself,” Link responded.
Link is accused of shooting and killing his best friend of 30 years, Cowbern Jones, 68, in 2023.
Prosecutors say Link first threatened Jones.
“When he said he sent him a text telling him that he would eff him up,” said then Lt. Christopher Cato, who is now the Chief of Police in Jonesboro.
Prosecutors say Link searched for Jones with a pipe and then shot him near a cemetery.
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But in a police interrogation video, Link initially denied shooting Jones.
“I want to know why you shot him,” Cato asked him.
“I didn’t shoot him,” Link said.
Later, Link admitted to confronting Jones, trying to get him to return a pistol he loaned him. He said Jones hit him with a walking stick, he got a pipe, they tussled over the gun, and when he tried to aim it away from him, it went off.
“Why didn’t you call 911 for your best friend?” Cato inquired.
“Because I was scared and I didn’t know where I was,” Link said in the video.
The defense said police did a poor job investigating this case. Erin King hammered Cato, the lead investigator, saying he knew there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Link fired the weapon.
“So, you can’t tell this jury definitively whether or not he was the person who fired the gun. Correct?” she asked.
“I cannot. No ma’am,” Cato said.
But prosecutors said Link’s DNA was found on the gun, and a DNA analyst couldn’t identify two other profiles on the weapon.
Link faces charges of malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.
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