With one suspect in custody, federal marshals are hunting for another man Monday suspected of assisting in the kidnapping and killing of a Dekalb couple who died after the ransom demand went unmet.
The woman who was killed was seven months pregnant with the couple’s child.
Richard Augusta Wilson, 41 — nicknamed Fathead — has an extensive criminal history and several convictions for violent crimes, deputies said in a prepared statement Monday. A significant reward is being offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Wilson, deputies said.
They described Wilson as being 6-feet tall and weighing 171 pounds, with multiple tattoos on both arms and shoulders and having a gold tooth.
Earlier Monday morning, Channel 2 Action News reported another man was arrested in the kidnapping and shooting deaths of the DeKalb County woman and her boyfriend.
Andre Cleveland Gay was booked into the Fulton County Jail Friday morning, charged with multiple counts of kidnapping, murder, felony murder, aggravated assault with intent to commit murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, jail records show.
A magistrate judge denied bond for Gay on Friday, and set his preliminary hearing for Oct. 10 in Fulton Superior Court, according to sheriff’s spokeswoman Tracy Flanagan.
Gay, 40, is charged in connection with the shooting deaths of Jeronta Brown, 23, and his pregnant girlfriend, 21-year-old Briana Brooks.
Brown and Brooks were kidnapped from outside a home on Colleen Court in DeKalb County on August 30, and a demand for $150,000 ransom was made by someone using Brown's cell phone.
About four hours after being kidnapped, Brown and Brooks were found 17 miles away on Ridge Avenue in northwest Atlanta. Both had been shot in the head, and Brown was dead.
Brooks was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she was put on life support and then delivered the couple’s second child, two months premature. Brooks was taken off life support Sept. 5.
Atlanta police have not said what led investigators to Gay, who Channel 2 reported was released from state prison earlier this year following a 1992 murder conviction.
According to Georgia Department of Corrections records, Gay was released from Phillips State Prison on parole in late January after serving nearly 22 years of a life sentence.
Gay was convicted in 1992 for the November, 1990 shooting deaths of Cathy Dozier, 39, and 18-month-old Michael Broughton. The two were killed by shots fired through the door of an apartment in the McDaniel-Glenn housing project in southwest Atlanta.
Gay was 15 at the time of those murders.
Police are asking anyone with any tips to call Crime Stoppers of Atlanta tip line: 404-577-TIPS (8477). Online Tips: www.crimestoppersatlanta.org/contact
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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