A Gwinnett County police corporal testified Wednesday that the man targeted in a September armed robbery near Buford fought off his attackers by wrestling away a gun and firing it himself, killing one of the four people who had followed him home from a night out in Atlanta. Marvin Wiley, 23, of Atlanta, died in the Sept. 5 shooting, while a second suspect was shot and left unable to walk.
Corporal J.K. Bell testified at a preliminary hearing for 23-year-olds E’imod Sanchez Toboris Taylor and Brinson Bernard Crumbley, both of whom face felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and firearm charges, according to WSB-TV. Bell testified that four people followed an apparent stranger home to Buford from a night out in Atlanta intending to rob him, and investigators believe the group was after his jewelry. The incident unfolded near 1400 Laurel Crossing Parkway in Buford, according to a release from the Gwinnett County Police Department.
Hours of Trailing Before the Confrontation
According to Bell's testimony, the group began trailing the man's Escalade in a white Kia between 3 and 4 a.m. as he went out to clubs with friends. A screenshot recovered from Wiley's phone placed the Kia at the man's last stop that morning, and the vehicle displayed a Texas tag that was actually registered to a Ford F-150. The Kia waited as the man parked at the Ellison apartments around 6:40 a.m., the detective said.
Three people got out of the Kia with guns, a scene captured by a neighboring security camera, per the WSB-TV report on Bell's testimony. The man fought Wiley for the silver revolver Wiley carried, killed him with it and then shot Taylor. Taylor was shot across the midsection and, in the chaos that followed, could not use his legs as he tried to make it back to the vehicle.
Driver's Role Still Unproven on Video
Police believe Crumbley drove the Kia, which then left Taylor at Grady Memorial Hospital rather than staying at the scene. But Bell acknowledged under questioning that no video evidence actually shows Crumbley inside the Kia, leaving that piece of the case resting on other investigative work rather than footage. Investigators have pointed to a recorded Instagram call two days after the shooting that appears to capture someone who was present during the robbery attempt.
Bell also agreed that the robbed man fired first and that he is an uncharged convicted felon, testimony that underscores how the case has unfolded against the man who defended himself rather than the man who orchestrated the robbery. Police have not identified the suspect who fired back, and the Gwinnett County Police Department has said it believes the incident was isolated with no known threat to the public.
Conflicting Accounts on a Victim's Condition
Officials have given differing accounts of the surviving shooting victim's health in the weeks since the attack. Gwinnett County police said in a release that Ortagus Bennett was in stable condition as of Sept. 6, while a separate report from CBS News Atlanta stated that his current condition was not known. Neither account has been updated publicly since.
Both Taylor and Crumbley now face felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and a firearm charge stemming from the Sept. 5 ambush. The preliminary hearing laid out, in granular detail, how a plan to rob a stranger of his jewelry in the middle of the night ended with one of the robbery's own would-be participants dead and another unable to walk — while the man they targeted has not been charged.
