A man is in critical condition after he allegedly shot his brother and 8-year-old nephew to death in an Austell home Sunday evening and then turned the gun on himself, according to Cobb County police.
The suspected gunman, 27-year-old Jermery Mathis, remains in a hospital with an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” police spokesman Sgt. Wayne Delk said in a statement.
The fatal shooting happened about 8:30 p.m. inside a home in the 900 block of Peel Castle Lane, Delk said. When officers arrived, they found 31-year-old Dreyon Mathis and his 8-year-old son suffering from gunshot wounds.
Dreyon Mathis was pronounced dead at the scene, Delk said. His son was rushed to a hospital, where he died.
Police have not released the child’s name, but a GoFundMe campaign created by his family identified him as Cashyon Mathis.
“He lost his life in a tragic way,” the GoFundMe organizer wrote on the page.
The 8-year-old’s death is the latest in a string of high-profile shootings across metro Atlanta that have claimed the lives of young children over the past year.
On the Fourth of July, 8-year-old Secoriea Turner was gunned down at a makeshift roadblock. In October, 13-year-old Brayan Zavala was killed in the front yard of his Clayton County home while helping his older brother fix the family’s lawn mower.
There was 7-year-old Kennedy Maxie, who died after being struck by a stray bullet while shopping with her family in Buckhead just days before Christmas. And just last week, there was 12-year-old David Mack, who was found with several gunshot wounds behind the South Fulton neighborhood where he lived.
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