Polk County’s top prosecutor on Monday announced his intent to seek the death penalty against Daylon Delon Gamble, who is accused in two separate double homicides in Rockmart.
Gamble is facing four counts of murder in the January deaths of his aunt, Helen Rose Mitchell, 48, a cousin, Jaequnn Davis, 19, and two others, 24-year-old Arkeyla Perry and 26-year-old Dadrian Cummings.
Documents obtained by AJC.com show District Attorney Jack Browning filed a notice of intent to pursue the death penalty against Gamble. The documents cite his charges and claimed the homicides were “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman, in that (they) involved depravity of mind.”
The bodies of Mitchell and Davis were found in a home on Williamson Street, and Perry and Cummings were found about 300 yards away at a home on Rome Street. A fifth person, 24-year-old Peerless Brown, was shot in the face at the Williamson Street home but survived.
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Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Brown previously told Channel 2 Action News that Gamble was his cousin, and the family had not seen or heard from him in several years before he turned up on their doorstep that night. Brown had just pulled into the driveway when he spotted him.
“When I got out of the car, I asked him what he was doing, and he said nothing,” Gamble said in an interview with the news station. “He shot me — didn’t say nothing.”
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Credit: WSBTV.com
Credit: WSBTV.com
At the time, Gamble was paroled on a 2011 attempted armed robbery and burglary conviction out of Bartow County. He was released from state prison in June 2016, records show.
He was on the run for three days after the shootings until being arrested in Indianapolis by U.S. marshals, according to the GBI.
Gamble was initially scheduled for an arraignment hearing Monday in Polk County Superior Court until Browning told the court he would seek capital punishment, the Polk County Standard Journal reported.
As a result, the proceedings stalled until Gamble’s attorney could be present, the newspaper reported. No date has been set.
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