A 45-year-old man was found dead from a gunshot wound to the chest inside a home in East Macon on Saturday, August 29, after deputies responding to a report of a possible shooting had to force their way in through a side door. Bibb County deputies identified the victim as Dan Anderson, and Coroner Lonnie Miley pronounced him deceased the following day, on August 30. The case remains under investigation, with no suspect publicly identified.
According to WGXA, Bibb County deputies were dispatched to the 1100 block of Maynard Street after a call about a possible person being shot. When they arrived, deputies knocked on the doors of the residence and got no answer, but found a side door standing open. A deputy was unable to open that door any wider, but was able to see Anderson lying on the ground inside and got no reply when attempting to speak to him, according to the incident report cited in the station's coverage.
Deputies then contacted EMS, who were able to enter the room where Anderson was found. The report also noted that the original 911 caller was not on scene by the time deputies arrived and searched for the victim or anyone else connected to the case, per the same account.
A Historic East Macon Neighborhood With a Violent Past
The 1100 block of Maynard Street sits in East Macon's Fort Hill district, one of the city's oldest residential neighborhoods east of the Ocmulgee River, an area that community leaders and historical records describe as facing ongoing socioeconomic challenges, property neglect, and localized crime concerns, according to The Telegraph. It is not the first fatal shooting on the same street: in March 2024, Bibb County Sheriff's deputies responded to a home on Maynard Street and found a female victim dead from gunshot wounds, according to a report from 13WMAZ.
Homicide investigations in Macon-Bibb County, including Anderson's case, are led by the Bibb County Sheriff's Office Violent Crime Unit, working alongside the Bibb County Coroner's Office, which arranges autopsies through the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Central Crime Lab in Macon, per the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Homicides Nearly Triple as City Grapples With Renewed Violence
Anderson's death adds to a troubling statistical shift in Macon-Bibb County this year. The county recorded 14 homicides in the first three months of 2026 alone, nearly tripling the five homicides logged over the same period in 2025, with gun violence accounting for nearly all of the deaths, according to coroner and sheriff records cited by The Telegraph. Eight of those first 14 homicides occurred during February alone.
That spike marks a sharp reversal from where the city stood just months earlier. Macon-Bibb County logged 29 homicides in 2025, its lowest annual total since 2016, following a peak of 71 homicides in 2022 that had since fallen to 40 in 2023 and 39 in 2024, according to The Macon Melody. The drop had followed community intervention efforts, including $400,000 in grant funding that county leaders awarded in January 2026 to 16 local nonprofits under the Macon Violence Prevention initiative, supporting youth mentorship, mental health, and community safety programs. That initiative has distributed nearly $3 million to local groups since it launched in 2021, per The Telegraph.
The renewed violence culminated in a particularly brutal 24-hour stretch in late February, when multiple shootings across Macon-Bibb County left four people dead and nine others wounded, according to a report from 13WMAZ. That spate of violence reportedly prompted joint safety discussions between county commissioners and the sheriff's office.
Anonymous Tips Sought as Investigation Continues
Anyone with information about Anderson's death is urged to contact the Bibb County Sheriff's Office at 478-751-7500, or to reach out anonymously through Macon Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-877-68CRIME. Crime Stoppers offers cash rewards of up to $2,000 for tips leading to an arrest in central Georgia felony cases, accepting information through its hotline or online tip portal, according to 41NBC.
If a suspect is eventually identified and charged with murder, Georgia law does not divide the offense into first- or second-degree classifications for adults; under Georgia Code § 16-5-1, a murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, life without parole, or the death penalty, according to the Epps Law Group. Separately, Georgia Code § 16-11-106 imposes an additional mandatory five-year prison term, served consecutively, for possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent felony, per Kaufman Law.
