A series of shootings in DeKalb County has left three dead within a 14-hour window, authorities have confirmed. According to a report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the first victim, an 18-year-old male identified as Nicholas Campbell, was found in the 5800 block of Par Three Court in Stonecrest on Wednesday evening, later a 20-year-old woman named Destiny Carson was found at an apartment near I-285 and Glenwood Road shot dead, then on Thursday morning, a 17-year-old named James Smith was discovered dead in a woodline.
The DeKalb County Police Department responded to the Bedevere Circle incident just before 9:45 p.m. Wednesday evening, where the female victim in her "her late teens to early 20s," was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound with reports from Atlanta News First suggesting that this incident was not random and the woman knew her killer. The suspect in her killing, 19-year-old Marquis Simmons, has since handed himself into the DeKalb County jail, facing murder charges according to police officials.
Moreover, this string of violence, which appears to be individual events not connected to one another, has pushed DeKalb's homicide count to 24 for the year per DeKalb police spokesperson Lt. Shane Smith as the investigation believes Campbell knew his attackers though no arrests have been made in that case at this time and while responding to a stabbing incident, authorities arrested a suspect on a charge of aggravated assault connected to the non-fatal stabbing of a 30-year-old man.
In the aftermath, the DeKalb community mourns its losses and investigators are tirelessly working to piece together the events that led to these deaths, as Lt. Smith conveyed, "We have no additional information at this time," however, authorities are urging anyone with information to reach out to DeKalb police to assist in these ongoing investigations into what appears to be a particularly violent span the County is yet to fully grasp the impacts of these tragedies.
