A Marietta man has been arrested in connection with Thursday afternoon’s fatal shootings of two 20-year-old men in an upscale Roswell subdivision.
Nicholas Farrell Abry and Spencer David Long were shot and killed while inside an SUV parked outside of Abry’s home, Officer Zachary Frommer with Roswell police said.
The shootings happened in the 100 block of Lynwood Drive, in the Lynwood Place neighborhood off Pine Grove Road, shortly before 3 p.m., Frommer said. Shortly after 7 p.m., police dogs were being led into the home as officers executed a search warrant, Frommer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Police later were seen coming out of the home carrying possible evidence, including a laptop.
But by that time, the suspect, 31-year-old Stephen Oliver Heller, had been in police custody for hours.
Frommer said that soon after the initial call about the shootings, Roswell 911 received calls about a reckless driver on Marietta Highway near Coleman Road.
“The vehicle was close to the description of the vehicle witnesses saw leaving the scene of the murder,” Frommer said early Friday.
He said officers converged on the area and located the vehicle in the parking lot of the Kroger store in the 900 block of Marietta Highway.
“At the time, it was not immediately clear that the Audi was involved in the homicides and officers and detectives were following up on multiple leads with other similar Audi vehicles,” Frommer said. “Heller was arrested on a suspended license charge and held at the Roswell Detention Center as the investigation continued.”
He said detectives later located the gun believed used in the shooting and a white paper drive-out tag that witnesses had reported was on the suspect’s vehicle, and charged Heller with two counts of homicide.
Heller was being held in the Roswell jail early Friday, but Frommer said he would later be moved to the Fulton County Jail.
Fulton sheriff’s records show Heller has been booked into the county jail nine times since 2001, most recently in late April. Heller was released from the jail May 8 after spending 9 days there on a misdemeanor battery/family violence charge. In December, he was jailed for four days, charged with simple assault and willful obstruction of a law enforcement officer.
“It is believed at this time that Heller is the sole participant in the murders and the motive appears to be a money dispute,” Frommer said.
Long, of Atlanta, and Abry were friends, according to police.
“It definitely was not random,” Frommer said. “It looks like it was a targeted killing.”
Residents in the neighborhood called police after hearing as many as five shots, according to police.
— Staff photographer Ben Gray contributed to this report.
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