Latest news with #GwinnettCountyDistrictAttorney'sOffice
Miami Herald
17-03-2025
- Miami Herald
Inmate smuggled fentanyl that killed 2 at Georgia jail, officials say. He's sentenced
An inmate accused of dealing the fentanyl that killed two men inside an Atlanta-area jail was sentenced to life in prison, Georgia prosecutors said. A jury convicted Harry Fomby, 54, of murder in the overdose deaths of Corey Leemarie Bryant, 22, and Ian Jabar Longshore, 36, in 2021, the Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office said in a March 14 news release. Fomby was also found guilty of violating Georgia's Controlled Substance Abuse Act and two counts of possession of prohibited items by an inmate, prosecutors said. He was ordered to serve two life sentences more than three years after Bryant and Longshore were found dead in their cells at the Gwinnett County Jail, according to prosecutors. Both overdosed on Fentanyl and Xylazine, a veterinary sedative often mixed with illicit drugs. No attorney information for Fomby was listed online. 'Fentanyl is a deadly drug, and ... this is not a substance to be toyed with,' Gwinnett District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson said in the release. 'Two men lost the chance to turn around their lives because of this substance.' Bryant and Longshore were discovered Sept. 6, 2021, the DA's office said. Fellow inmates told jailers that Fomby was the one who smuggled in the deadly drugs. At trial, investigators showed footage of an X-ray scan taken as Fomby was being booked into the Gwinnett County Jail, according to the release. It showed a 'small circular item' hidden between his legs. Prosecutors also pointed to security video from the jail that showed Longshore walk to Fomby's cell and pick up a 'small item' that was slid under the door. Later, Longshore returned with commissary items that he left outside Fomby's cell. Prosecutors said Fomby acknowledged the trade during a jailhouse phone call, saying 'he was making 'maneuvers'' at the jail. He tried to blame his cellmate when investigators asked him about it, authorities said. Fomby remained in the Gwinnett County Jail without bond as of March 17, online records show. Lawrenceville is about a 30-mile drive northeast from downtown Atlanta.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Yahoo
Man sentenced after strangling 21-year-old, burying his remains near Lake Lanier
Ten years after a man disappeared, the lone suspect in the case has been convicted of his murder. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] On Tuesday, a Gwinnett County jury found 30-year-old Jeffrey Emerson Moulder, of Cumming, guilty of malice murder and two counts of felony murder in the strangulation death of 21-year-old Samuel Waters. On Jan. 4, 2015, Waters left his Lawrenceville home with a friend to buy beer. He was never seen again. The friend was Moulder. Waters was classified as a missing person case until 2021. The two knew each other because they had both fathered children by Moulder's first wife, Rebecca Bell. According to the Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office, Bell and Waters never got married and he wasn't in the child's life. When she was contemplating divorce from Moulder, he tried to bring Waters back into Bell's life to avoid having to pay child support for his child and Waters' child, the DA said. Officials said Bell told Moulder that to fix the relationship, he would have to remove Waters from her life. TRENDING STORIES: Worker severely burns 9-month-old baby at DeKalb County daycare, mother says GA church daycare employee accused of giving Benadryl to toddlers to make them go to sleep 4 charged in death of 5-year-old boy 'incinerated' in hyperbaric chamber explosion Court documents revealed Moulder later lured Waters to a back road in Lawrenceville and strangled him to death, then dismembered the 21-year-old's body and disposed of the remains in multiple areas near Lake Lanier after unsuccessfully trying to burn the body. In the court document, prosecutors say Moulder confessed to his second wife that he had 'placed Samuel in a chokehold and after he rendered him unconscious, he then placed a plastic bag over Samuel's head (suffocating him to death.) (He) then placed Samuel's body in the trunk of his car and drove to the lake house.' Months later, authorities searched the Lake Lanier home and seized a metal barrel, one they say Moulder used to burn the body in before burying the remains in different places around Hall County. According to testimony from the trial, he also described the locations where he buried parts of the body. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Investigators searched the areas Moulder described with cadaver dogs but could not find any human remains. The cadaver dogs did, however, locate evidence that human remains had once been in one of the burial locations. During the trial, a cadaver dog expert described how the dogs could identify where remains had potentially deteriorated and thus were undetectable to the human eye. During the trial, prosecutors played an audio recording of Moulder strangling his second wife until she passed out while demanding that she stop recording the argument they were having. She testified that when she came to, Moulder told her, 'I killed Samuel Waters, do you want to record that, too?' After the jury deliberated for less than two hours, Moulder was convicted and a judge sentenced him to life in prison. 'Samuel Waters' family is able to get justice after 10 long years,' Gwinnett District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson said. This was not an easy case to close because the body was never found. But our team was able to successfully piece together evidence to prove the defendant's guilt.'
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Yahoo
Gwinnett man who shot woman through door after she complained about loud music won't be charged
The Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office has declined to prosecute a man who shot through his apartment door, striking an unarmed woman who raised concerns about loud music. 'I did nothing to deserve this,' said Jalyne Evans-Jones, through tears. 'It's just so frustrating because it's like they won't even believe us.' She told Channel 2 Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson that she suffered serious injuries to her wrist and abdomen when Alejandro Querales-Morales fired a single shot through his closed apartment door at the Veranda Chase Apartments near Lawrenceville in August 2023, according to police. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The bullet struck Evans-Jones in the abdomen, damaging her liver and colon. She and her husband had gone to Querales-Morales' door around 10 p.m. to ask him to lower his music after the complex's quiet hours. 'We knocked on the apartment door politely to ask them to lower the music because it was after the apartment's quiet hours,' said Eric Jones, Evans-Jones' husband. 'We were thinking we were being neighborly, only to be met with a bullet being discharged behind a closed door.' Querales-Morales told investigators he looked through his peephole and saw what he believed to be a gun, prompting him to fire in self-defense. According to police reports, Querales-Morales said he had people over for a gathering and had drank 'approximately seven beers' starting around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. before the incident. A witness from a neighboring apartment told police she saw Jones with a gun in one hand and a phone in another shortly after hearing the gunshot. Jones explains this was after he had returned to his apartment to retrieve his keys and his firearm, following the shooting of his wife. 'If I had a gun at that particular time, why would I not then turn around and discharge my firearm?' he asked. 'There was no evidence that they could produce that would put a gun in my hand prior to that shooting occurring.' TRENDING STORIES: Spelman instructor, beloved coach disappear from boat found circling on Lake Oconee Apalachee High School shooting: Suspect's father granted $500,000 bond Georgians could use e-driver's licenses if new bill passes Initially charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct by Gwinnett police, the Gwinnett County Solicitor's Office later recommended upgrading the charge against Querales-Morales to aggravated battery. In a September 2023 memo, the Solicitor's Office noted that Querales-Morales 'fired a firearm through a door knowing that victim was standing directly outside of doorway.' The Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office dismissed all charges in January 2025, citing self-defense as the reason for the dismissal. 'There should be some accountability,' Evans-Jones said. 'To not receive any kind of justice is hard.' Eric Jones says he will continue seeking justice for his wife. He is calling for three specific actions: a formal appeal to the District Attorney's Office to reinstate felony charges based on the available evidence, an independent review of the case, and legislative action to prevent similar cases from being dismissed under self-defense claims. 'I'm going to continue to advocate and fight for justice for my wife, which she rightfully deserves, if it takes the last breath,' he said. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
