A 21-year-old man was shot multiple times and killed after a dispute in a neighborhood near Hiram, the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.

Deputies were called to the Regency Park subdivision around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, spokesman Sgt. Ashley Henson said. By then, Brian Perry Belin Jr. had died from his injuries, Henson said.

It was the first homicide of the year in Paulding, Henson said.

“As soon as they arrived, detectives immediately began speaking with witnesses and determined that the victim and the suspect had engaged in some type of dispute,” Henson said in an emailed statement.

Investigators believe James Graham Ward, 19, shot Belin near the neighborhood tennis courts and then left the area. Early Thursday, deputies located Ward at a Dallas home, where he was arrested without incident.

Ward has been charged with murder and was being held without bond at the Paulding jail, Henson said.

Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division at 770-443-3015 or the anonymous tip line at 770-443-3047.

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