An unauthorized security guard working under the table at an East Point Family Dollar has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to fatally shooting a customer on Christmas Eve 2024. Justin Hodges entered a negotiated guilty plea this month for the murder of Scott Melton, who was gunned down outside the store at the intersection of Delowe Drive and Headland Drive following an argument that investigators say led to shots being fired.
According to WSB-TV, Hodges and Melton got into an argument inside the store before the confrontation spilled into violence. Surveillance video from inside and outside the Family Dollar showed Hodges pursuing Melton through the store and into the parking lot, striking him over the head with a handgun before shooting him point-blank in the head, footage that Fulton County prosecutors introduced in court to argue against granting him bond.
Melton had gone to the store with his wife, Alize Forshee-Melton, who was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, at the time of the shooting. East Point police investigators confirmed that surveillance footage showed Melton did nothing illegal or aggressive to provoke the guard before he was pursued and shot, ruling out any suggestion that the killing was a mutual altercation or an act of self-defense.
A Guard Hired Off the Books
Hodges was never an actual employee of Family Dollar. East Point Police Chief Shawn Buchanan revealed that he had been hired as a security guard by his girlfriend, who worked at the store as its manager, without any corporate vetting or approval. The arrangement placed an unlicensed, informal guard on the floor of a retail store with no oversight from the company itself.
That gap matters under Georgia law. Private security personnel in the state are regulated by the Georgia Board of Private Detective and Security Agencies under Title 43, Chapter 38 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, which requires 24 hours of mandatory basic instruction, with armed guards needing 15 additional hours of firearms training and registration under a licensed agency, per Defencify Training. Hodges' under-the-table role bypassed those requirements entirely.
His girlfriend's involvement did not end with the hiring arrangement. She was arrested and charged with aiding another to escape lawful custody and obstruction after investigators discovered she met up with Hodges immediately after the shooting and lied to police, helping him evade the initial response, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She was released on a $5,000 bond shortly after her arrest.
Nine Months on the Run
Hodges evaded law enforcement for nine months before U.S. Marshals apprehended him in neighboring DeKalb County, the culmination of a multi-agency manhunt. Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta had expanded the reward for information leading to his capture from $2,000 to $10,000, a bump Hoodline previously reported on during the manhunt.
Once captured, Hodges' defense attorney asked a Fulton County judge to release him on bond so he could live with family and work at a Wendy's, but the judge denied the request after prosecutors argued he posed a severe flight risk and a danger to the community. Melton's widow testified during that hearing that her family feared for their safety if Hodges were freed.
A New Marriage Cut Short
Melton and Forshee-Melton had been married for only four months at the time of the shooting. The couple met outside a DeKalb County restaurant in September 2024, got engaged three days later, and married on September 9, 2024. Melton had also been helping raise her two-year-old child from a previous relationship, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Hodges' guilty plea this month resulted in a sentence of life in prison, with his girlfriend separately sentenced to five years of probation. The case closes out a saga that began with an informal, unlicensed hiring decision at a neighborhood retail store and ended in a fatal shooting that left a pregnant widow and left open questions about accountability for how the guard came to be on duty in the first place.
