Renaldo Baptiste was serving a life sentence when he helped organise the assassination attempt that ended up killing a mum-of-four instead of a rival gang member in Talbot Green
Joanne Penney was shot in the chest at almost point blank range on the doorstep(Image: PA)
A crime boss has become the sixth person to be convicted of the murder of Joanne Penney in a mistaken-identity hit job.
Drugs lord Renaldo Baptiste, 39, was already serving a life sentence when he helped organise the bungled assassination from his prison cell. A court heard a gunman and two accomplices were attempting to shoot a member of a rival gang in Talbot Green, near Cardiff.
Instead they knocked on the door of shopworker Joanne, 40, a mum of four, and killed her with a single bullet to the chest. Joanne called out “I’ve been shot” and staggered backwards, dying of the injury only a few seconds later.
The gunman and his accomplices quickly fled the scene. A court heard that Baptiste, convicted of a drugs rival’s murder in 2021, used prison phones to organise with fellow gang members the fatal attack on March 9, 2025.
Baptise is one of four more people who have been convicted for their involvement in the mum’s death in a second trial following one earlier this year that found five others convicted. Molly Ruth Cooper, from Leicestershire, was found guilty of supplying, possessing, purchasing or acquiring ammunition without holding a firearms certificate. Laura John and former Arsenal footballer Donna James were convicted of assisting an offender at Cardiff crown court.
Five others were convicted of the mum’s murder at a previous trial earlier this year. Gunman Marcus Huntley, 21 pleaded guilty to murder while Joshua Gordon, Jordan Mills-Smith, Melissa Quailey-Dashper and Kristina Ginova were found guilty after trials. All are to be sentenced later.
Baptiste had been jailed in 2022 for a minimum of 25 years for murdering a man who used to work for his drugs supply business. At the trial for Joanne’s murder, he told the court he became involved with Gordon to make money by acting as “a middleman [by] stockbroking” for him if Gordon ran out of drugs.
He told jurors that he used his “prison phone” to source the drugs from behind bars and admitted being part of an Organised Crime Gang known as Rico. He also admitted to sourcing drugs for Huntley and Mills-Smith, who sold crack and cocaine in south Wales.
The pair branched out, trying to take the market in Talbot Green, but another OGC had already claimed the turf. When the Cardiff pair put a dealer in place at 10 Llys Illtyd in Talbot Green to sell, their rivals took offence. They “confronted and humiliated” members of the Cardiff gang, which led Huntley’s group to discuss getting their hands on a gun and ammunition to “send a message.”
Huntley contacted Baptiste to discuss the sale of a .38 Smith & Wesson pistol along with “10 sweets” – slang for bullets. Other messages between their pair showed Huntley telling Baptiste: “Leg shots only”, to which Baptiste replied with a laughing emoji.
Baptiste claimed “leg shot” meant a half-gram of cocaine and had nothing to do with guns. He denied knowing that Huntley had obtained a firearm, a converted started pistol, and said he had nothing to do with arranging it. The trial hear that, after the shooting, two cars drove back to Leicester, during which time panic set in with a series of frantic WhatsApp group calls being made on the evening of March 9, 2025.
Giving evidence, Baptiste told the court Mills-Smith had phoned him. He said: “He didn’t say who had done the shooting or who had been shot. I didn’t know someone had died until I read it online.”
The next day, Huntley buried the starter pistol and ammunition in a park near his Cardiff home and travelled to Leicester to cover his tracks. Mills-Smith also fled, with his girlfriend, Laura John, and mum, Donna James, buying him a coach ticket from Cardiff to London so he could reach his dad’s home in Suffolk.
The gun Huntley had tried to dispose of and hte bullets were found buried in the woods in Heritage Park. The court heard DNA recovered from the ammunition was a billion times more likely to belong to Molly Cooper than not and this indicated she had “direct contact” with the bullets at some point.
Joanne’s heartbroken family issued a statement, saying: “We are devastated by the tragic loss of our beloved Joanne. She was a daughter, mother, sister, and niece – loved deeply by all who knew her. Her kindness, strength, and love for her family will never be forgotten. We appreciate the support and condolences from the community.”
