Insets, from left: Zeddrick Ross (Faulkner County Jail) and Jordanne Drinkwater (Jordanne Drinkwater/Facebook). Background: The Walmart in Conway, Arkansas, where Ross allegedly stabbed Drinkwater to death (Google Maps).
A tragic incident unfolded at a Walmart in Conway, Arkansas, where an employee, simply carrying out her duties, was reportedly stabbed to death in what authorities have described as a “random act of violence.” The heartbreaking event occurred at the Walmart located on Skyline Drive, approximately 30 miles north of Little Rock.
Zeddrick Ross, 37, stands accused of first-degree murder in the death of 32-year-old Jordanne Drinkwater, the Conway Police Department said.
On the night of March 31, at around 11 p.m., police were alerted to an ongoing stabbing within the store. Upon arrival, officers encountered the suspect, who was still holding a knife. In an attempt to neutralize the situation, one officer discharged his firearm, but missed, while another officer successfully deployed a Taser to subdue the suspect, according to police reports. Emergency services declared the victim, identified as Jordanne Drinkwater, deceased at the scene.
Details from an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime reveal that the suspect, Zeddrick Ross, was reportedly under the delusion that he was being pursued by a demon. In his disturbed state, Ross allegedly stole a large knife from a nearby Walgreens and a machete from the Walmart before committing the attack. He claimed the supposed demon appeared to him as a light-skinned Black woman with brown eyes and a weave.
Ross allegedly mistook Drinkwater for this perceived demon, leading him to stab her in the shoulder and neck. Upon realizing his grave mistake, he reportedly recognized that the woman he had attacked bore no resemblance to the demon he imagined. The victim, Jordanne Drinkwater, was an innocent Walmart employee who found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, tragically losing her life during what should have been a routine work shift.
He saw Drinkwater from a distance and thought she was the demon, so he allegedly stabbed her in the shoulder and neck.
“After the stabbing Zeddrick looked down and realized that the female laying on the ground was not the demon, and looked nothing like the demon he thought he was killing,” cops wrote. “The individual he was stabbing was actually Jordanne Drinkwater, who is an employee of Walmart who was just working her normal shift.”
Cops are still working to see if there was any other motive or connection between the two.
“I hate to sit there and speculate and say anything like ‘random act of violence,’ but it truly was—there was no correlation between the [victim and suspect] that we found yet, or I was not informed of,” police spokesman Daniel Hogan told local ABC affiliate KATV.
Those who knew Drinkwater spoke highly of her.
“I never met somebody as pure as Jordan,” her friend Sam Slaughter told KATV. “I still don’t understand why it had to be her. She helped change my entire life for the better — everything from staying sober to the way I think about the world and how it works and not putting more hate into it and just trying to do better. She was an amazing human being. She’s going to be so, so missed.”
Ross is at the Faulkner County Jail on a $1 million bond. He’s next slated to appear in court on April 20.
