Lillian Bond: 4 gang members get life sentence for murdering Norfolk woman over nephew’s $81K drug debt

Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers’ discretion advised.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: Norfolk police found Lillian Bond fatally shot in front of her home on April 19, 2016. Almost a decade later, the four men involved in the murder of the woman were sentenced to life without parole on January, 12.

The 59-year-old woman was gunned down as she wheeled her trash container to the curb outside a residence in Virginia. As per WTKR, in October 2020, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced six arrests in the case and four were convicted on March 2023.

Why did the four gang members kill Lillian Bond? 

The sentences were handed down in US District Court to Jaquate Simpson, 39, Landis Jackson, 39, Kalub Shipman, 36, and Nelson Evans, 33. 

Simpson and Jackson operated a multimillion-dollar narcotics operation in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, in collaboration with a Mexican cartel. Evans was the hired hitman who shot Lillian 'Resa' Bond. Shipman, a member of the Nine Trey Gangsters Blood gang, assisted in the murder outside her house.

The defendants were convicted at the end of a 2-week trial in March 2023 on a variety of charges including murder, conspiracy and drug trafficking.

Their life sentence without the possibility of parole was mandated by federal law as per The Virginian Pilot.

Evidence presented during the trial revealed that Brandon Williams, Bond's nephew, had pilfered two kilograms of cocaine worth $81,000 from a lady employed by Simpson and Jackson.

The men hired a hitman to murder "anyone who came out" of Williams' residence as payback. After accepting the job offer, Shipman and Evans were promised $10,000 for each person they killed.

'This was not about money, it was about power and respect'

Williams was staying with Bond at her Ingleside area home at the time. Bond, a grandmother who’d worked as a housekeeping supervisor at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters for many years, died at the scene. Prosecutors have said she was unaware of the trouble in which her nephew was involved.

"Simpson ordered the murder of Lillian Bond and forever destroyed a family just to respond to a monetary debt he never planned on recouping,” prosecutors John Butler, Kristin Bird and Joseph DePadilla wrote in a position paper filed in Simpson’s case. “This was not about money, it was about power and respect," they added.

A neighbor testified during Bond's trial that she saw a Lexus sedan with North Carolina license plates pull up as Bond was moving her garbage can to the curb. The neighbor saw a man with a gun come out of the passenger side and then claimed to have heard multiple shots.

The case remained unsolved for many years until a woman, who had worked with Simpson and Jackson and was charged with a different crime, promised to disclose information regarding Bond's murder in exchange for leniency.

Precious Hill, a niece of Bond’s, said the family was grateful for the lengthy sentences. Hill called Bond the matriarch of the family who was always hosting family gatherings and was the glue that kept them all together.

“The hardest thing is knowing that she did not deserve this and that they are not remorseful,” Hill said and added, “I just pray for healing for our family.”