COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two months after a shooting at a downtown Columbus nightclub left two people dead and two others injured, the suspect is behind bars. On Thursday, the U.S. Marshals took 26-year-old Jaquez Hoover into custody in Columbus.
The two people who did not survive the shooting were identified as Ceilin Smith and Desmond Taylor. Family and friends of the victims involved in the shooting said they can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Every morning, I would wake up and check the news like, did they catch him?" Karhonda, Ceilin Smith’s girlfriend, said.
"It took too long but, it happened. It happened… I just broke down crying like, I called my mom, I called everybody like, ‘they got him',” Latisa Shaver, a survivor of the shooting, said.
Shaver worked as a security guard at the club alongside Smith and Taylor. She was shot six times that night but survived. Shaver considered the two men who were killed here brothers.
"This is why I survived, I survived for a reason, so I can tell my story and get justice for my brothers,” Shaver said.
Karhonda said she woke up with a good feeling Thursday morning.
“I was like, today is gonna be one of those days... and less than two hours later, I was getting text messages like they caught him. I knew it, I felt it,” Karhonda said.
The daughter she shares with Smith was just seven weeks old when he died. She’s spent her short life so far at Nationwide Children’s Hospital after being born with a heart defect.
"Ceilin was at that hospital from sun up to sun down. He would leave from the bar and go straight to the hospital,” Karhonda said.
Karhonda has been left taking care of her baby and two other children on her own, but learning the news of Hoover’s arrest brings her a sense of peace.
"It gives me some type of comfort like I know, we ok. We ok,” Karhonda said.
Now they plan to attend all of Hoover’s court hearings as the case moves forward.
"Every last single court date, I'm gonna look him in his eyes just like he looked me in my eyes when he shot me,” Shaver said.
Shaver said she will rest a little easier knowing she is fulfilling her new purpose in life: seeking justice.
"RIP to my brothers. They can rest peacefully now,” Shaver said.
Hoover’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday morning.