Jury selection underway for Cedar Rapids man accused of first-degree murder

CEDAR RAPIDS - Jury selection continues Thursday for a Cedar Rapids man accused of killing two people while they were baby-sitting in a southeast home in 2014.

Kendu Petties, 32, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit a forcible felony. He is accused of fatally shooting Quintrell Perkins, 22, and Sierrah Simmons, 20, in a house at 1708 Fourth Ave. SE on April 2, 2014.

Perkins and Simmons were not the targets that night, the complaint shows. Investigators believe Petties had planned to 'shoot and kill two other subjects inside the residence,” but they were not home.

The complaint shows 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 in the living room.

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

Jury selection started Wednesday and testimony is expected to start late Thursday morning or in the afternoon. The trial is expected to go into next week.

The trial has been reset a few times, and Petties wasn't initially charged because he had left the state and wasn't extradited from Arizona to Cedar Rapids until 2015. A warrant in the double homicide was issued Aug. 14, 2014, and U.S. Marshals tracked Petties to Mesa, Ariz., where he was found Aug. 21, 2015, living with a girlfriend.

Petties has remained in the Linn County Jail with bail set at $2 million.

If convicted on both charges, he faces two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

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