Trial of King Mao's shooting: Mother of the victim, restaurant owner and sister of the accused testify

CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – At the end of the second day of the jury trial of a man accused of murder and armed robbery of a King Mao employee, the jury heard testimony from the victim's mother, restaurant owners and the defendant's sister.

On December 2, 2020, at approximately 12:45 p.m., officers responded to King Mao Chinese Restaurant on Needmore Road where an armed robbery resulted in the death of an employee, 28-year-old Seth Stephens. The suspect fled and remained at large for nearly two years.

An investigation by the Clarksville Police Department's Special Operations Task Force Homicide Unit, with assistance from the Joliet, Illinois Police Department, led to the identification of Jaelyn Deon Gant as a suspect. Gant, who was in custody in Illinois on unrelated charges, was extradited from the Western Illinois Correctional Center to the Montgomery County Jail on November 9, 2022.

Here are three Findings from the witness statements made so far in the trial.

1. Victim’s mother testifies

Rachael Stephens, the victim's mother, was the first witness called to the stand and smiled brightly as she spoke about her son.

“He loved working in the restaurants, he loved cooking,” Rachael said, smiling. “He could make everyone around him laugh, he was very funny and to me he was very loving and good. He loved animals and was just great to be around.”

According to Rachael, her son had shown signs of autism early on. They had him tested, but the diagnosis was not confirmed until many years later, when Stephens had a son of his own who also has autism.

They lived in Fort Deposit, Alabama until a family emergency forced them to return to Clarksville in 2020.

On December 2, 2020, Rachael said she and her daughter were on their way to IHop for an early lunch and passed by the King Mao restaurant, where Seth was scheduled to work that day. When they looked over, she saw the parking lot flooded with blue lights and yellow police tape.

Without wasting another second, she pulled into the nearby Home Depot parking lot and drove over where she was stopped by police. When she told them that her son worked at the restaurant, the officer escorted her to where the employees were being held to help her find her son, unaware that he was the victim of the shooting that had just occurred.

“When he took me next door to where the other employees had been taken, the officer asked one of the employees if she knew Seth Stephens,” “Rachael remembered, and the smile had long since disappeared as the tears came to her eyes. “She said yes, and he said, 'Where is he?' And she said, 'He went to the hospital.'”

2. Owners of King Mao testify

With the help of Mandarin-Chinese translator Wei Ralph, Dong Dong Jiang and Wen Huan Dong, owners of King Mao restaurant, recalled the day their business was robbed and one of their most loyal employees was killed.

“We only have $150 in the cash register,” Wen Huan Dong told the jury. “Seth had volunteered to work for me that day. That was when COVID was at its peak and I had been working straight for two weeks, so I wasn't there when the shooting happened.”

However, her husband, Dong Dong Jiang, had been there since about 10 a.m., preparing the restaurant for its 11 a.m. opening.

“I work in the back kitchen with the cooks,” he said. “I heard a loud bang and was about to look forward when I heard two more bangs, gunshots… I was so scared I didn't dare go over there.”

But after a minute everything was quiet. Dong Dong Jiang gathered his courage and looked ahead. There he saw a “shadow” fleeing from the store. Seth, one of his most loyal employees, was lying under the cash register and was bleeding profusely.

“I called my wife and told her to call the police and come here because my English is not very good.”

3. “He considered killing me because I knew.”

Rebeckah Fields had been in Clarksville with her brother Gant and their children for about a week after Thanksgiving. On the last day, Fields went to her friend's apartment in Padduck Place to get shower gel. When she left, Gant accompanied her on the five-minute drive.

Fields then got out of the car, knocked on the door, and even called her friend, but received no response. After a few moments of no response, she returned to her vehicle, but her brother Gant was nowhere to be seen. She waited for about five to seven minutes, and just as she was considering whether to leave him behind, Gant came back with his black hoodie over his head and got in the car. He said he had to make a call.

But when they returned to Illinois, Gant took her aside for a private conversation and confessed that while she was busy at the apartment, he had gone to a nearby Chinese restaurant and robbed the store, shooting the cashier.

“They took the money out of the register and when he told them to open the safe, they said there was no money in it,” Fields recalled. “The person holding the money said, 'If you want this money, you're going to have to use this (gun).' At that moment, he said he felt 'tested.'”

“So he shot him, and he shot him multiple times, and every time he shot, the man screamed,” Fields said. “He told me if I knew what was best for me, I had to keep my mouth shut.”

According to Fields, Gant didn't seem afraid of getting caught, as he wore a face mask and said police would never be able to prove it was him. But with this alleged confession, over time Gant began to view his sister as a liability and in the months that followed threatened her with violence to keep quiet.

In February 2021, Gant was in a car accident in Illinois and fled the scene. That same evening, he came to his sister, visibly panicked, telling her that the gun he used to shoot King Mao was still in the car and that police would undoubtedly trace it back to him.

“He told me he considered killing me because I was the only one who could connect him to what he had done,” Fields said, recalling that night. “In later conversations, he told me he should have killed me when he had the chance.”