Cedar Rapids man charged in 2014 double homicide pleads not guilty

CEDAR RAPIDS - A man arrested in Arizona last month for a 2014 double homicide in southeast Cedar Rapids pleaded not guilty last week in Linn County District Court.

Kendu R. Petties, 31, filed his written plea last Friday to two counts of first-degree murder. Petties is accused of shooting and killing Quintrell Perkins, 22, and Sierrah Simmons, 20, on April 2, 2014. Petties remains in jail on a $2 million bail.

Petties is accused of firing multiple shots into a house at 1708 Fourth Ave. SE, where Perkins and Simmons were found dead inside the house when police responded that night. A family friend told The Gazette that Perkins and Simmons were at the house baby-sitting Perkins' younger siblings that night.

A criminal complaint states Perkins and Simmons were not the targets that night. Petties had planned to 'shoot and kill two other subjects inside the residence,” but those people were not home. Petties fired a full, 10-round magazine of bullets into the house, as well as a single round that was in the chamber of the gun. Two of the bullets hit Perkins and Simmons, who were sitting in the living room.

Witnesses verified that Petties was the shooter, and he admitted to more than one person that he fired the shots, the complaint states.

Petties also faces another charge of assault causing bodily injury, which was filed in October 2014, six months after the double homicide. He is accused of assaulting a woman in Marion. He was out on a $3,000 bail, but it was revoked after he did not appear for a court hearing in December 2014.

A warrant was issued Aug. 14 and U.S. Marshals tracked Petties to Mesa, Ariz., where he was found Aug. 21 living with a girlfriend. He then was extradited to Cedar Rapids.

Trial is set Dec. 14. 

l Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com