Superior Court Judge Josephine Holmes Cook, 49, was found fatally wounded in her South Fulton, Georgia home on October 16, 1996. Medical examiners concluded she bled to death from a single 9-millimeter gunshot wound to her right shoulder, an oozing type injury that examiners said she could have survived with prompt medical care. Her time of death was estimated between 6:45 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. that morning.

Investigators quickly focused on Raynard. They noted he had no blood on him despite saying he had found and cradled his mother, and reports described a troubled relationship and recent friction over his academic problems. A neighbor who had been on the phone with Judge Cook the night before heard Raynard sound upset, and Raynard had purchased a 9-millimeter Glock weeks earlier; the murder weapon was never recovered. Raynard was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in February 1998 and, after a March 1998 trial in which he denied shooting his mother and claimed someone in a ski mask had forced him to shoot, a jury acquitted him of malice murder but convicted him of felony murder and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to life in prison, and that conviction was later affirmed on appeal.