Restaurant manager gunned down on U.S. 40 is clinging to life

So far, what little Jomond Williams’ family knows about the gunmen who tried to kill him comes in nods and hand-scrawled notes.

Police found the 41-year-old Wendy’s restaurant manager lying alongside U.S. 40, bleeding with multiple gunshots, after midnight Sunday morning.

He’d been walking home from the Wendy’s at U.S. 40 and Blue Ridge Cut-Off, police said, in the direction of a motel where he apparently had been staying. He had made it to about Manchester Trafficway about 2:30 a.m. when he said he was attacked.

Williams had been through two surgeries Sunday before family got to the hospital later in the day, and he is going back for another Tuesday morning, his sister Ramona Harris said.

He has been intubated, heavily sedated and unable to speak.

Williams managed to write the words “blue Honda,” Harris said. And he used his hand to mimic a triggered gun. Two shooters, he indicated.

Two shots hit him in the back, she said. One pierced a kidney. He was also shot in the stomach, and twice more below the waist.

“He’s clinging to life,” Harris said. “His blood pressure is remaining low.”

He has seemed to indicate that he does not know who the shooters in the Honda were. Or perhaps he meant that he doesn’t know why they stopped, got out and fired on him, she said.

Asked if he had been robbed, he shook his head no.

“We’re like a deer in headlights,” she said. “We’re looking for anything” to understand what happened.

Detectives who met with Williams are working with the same information while police investigate the shooting.

Williams was single and has worked for Wendy’s for several years, at various sites in the area.

“He’s a workaholic,” Harris said. When she notified his workplace late Sunday, she said they knew something must be wrong because he was supposed to be working again that day.

He is a talented illustrator and “an aspiring rapper,” she said. “He didn’t have any bad blood with anyone — he worked all the time. We have more questions than answers.”

The family is hoping witnesses will contact police. Anyone with information can call the TIPS Hotline 816-474-8477.

This story was originally published November 6, 2017 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Restaurant manager gunned down on U.S. 40 is clinging to life."