For more than a week, Autumn Ernst knew the name of the man suspected of killing her 25-year-old son, who worked in Buckhead as a valet. But she wasn’t allowed to share it.
She is now finally able to openly plead for justice, hours after Atlanta police identified the suspect as 22-year-old Randy King and asked for the public’s help in finding him.
“I hope now that his name has been released, the public will help the APD and turn him in,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday afternoon. “We need to find him. Bring justice to my son and family.”
King has been on the run since he allegedly opened fire on Harrison Olvey after the valet spotted him attempting to break into a truck Sept. 3 outside a LongHorn Steakhouse near Uptown Atlanta, previously known as Lindbergh City Center.
Investigators believe King drives a newer model Kia with dark-tinted windows. The murder suspect is considered “armed and dangerous,” police said Thursday.
Olvey was handling parking services for the nearby Tongue & Groove nightclub that Sunday when he noticed the suspect breaking into the vehicle of someone he knew, authorities said. Ernst said he went up to the man, asked him what he was doing and was shot without warning.
Credit: Autumn Ernst
Credit: Autumn Ernst
“He just simply asked them a question,” she told the AJC last Wednesday. “And they didn’t give him a chance.”
Olvey was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he died from his injuries, police said.
Authorities confirmed Sept. 5 that arrest warrants were issued in the case but only publicly released the suspect’s identity Thursday — as Ernst said she was getting a tattoo of her son to keep his memory alive. She called Olvey a hero who was just doing the right thing, and asked the public to do the same and help find King.
In 2018, King, of Atlanta, was arrested after he and another teenager led police on a high-speed chase in a Jaguar from Newnan onto I-85, before crashing in Coweta County, authorities said. Spike strips caused the Jaguar, which was allegedly driven by the other teen, to crash into a guardrail on the right side of the interstate.
King, who was 17 at the time, had been wanted on a theft by receiving charge out of Cobb County, “and possibly being involved in a shooting on MARTA property,” police said at the time, adding that both teens had guns on them.
In July 2022, King was arrested and booked into the Fulton County Jail on several charges, including theft by taking, online records show. He was released about a month later.
“As long as he is out there and not caught — he will do this to your family, too,” Ernst said of King. “He has no regard for human life.”
The valet job was only temporary for Olvey, a recent Kennesaw State University graduate who had bigger dreams and had been offered a job with State Farm, Ernst said. Last weekend, her son was set to attend a friend’s wedding. His family said they had to painfully cancel his tuxedo rental.
Olvey was Ernst’s firstborn and also a big brother and protector to his younger sister Addison. Their bond grew stronger after their father, Steve, died of heart failure last year.
Credit: Autumn Ernst
Credit: Autumn Ernst
Ernst said Addison and several other family members joined her in getting tattoos in Olvey’s memory. Hers included his date of birth and signature from a Mother’s Day card he proudly gave her this year. In black ink, slightly bolder than the signature and birthday, reads, “Forever in my Heart.”
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