Within hours of issuing an Amber Alert for a 1-year-old Newton County girl Sunday morning, the GBI posted the grim news of the child’s death.
Jaquari Bennett was reported to be missing and in “extreme danger,” the GBI said, and she was believed to be with her father, Darian Javaris Bennett. She was last seen at a residence on Chandler Fields Drive in Covington around 11 p.m. Saturday.
Police told Channel 2 Action News that Darian Bennett shot and killed the girl’s mother and critically injured her grandmother before kidnapping Jaquari.
The mother was later identified as 38-year-old Keashawn Washington and the grandmother as 63-year-old Peggy Burns, authorities told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Burns has been hospitalized.
The Amber Alert was first issued just after 2 a.m. and again just before 8 a.m.
Shortly before the second alert, Darian Bennett called police in Clayton County and said he was going to kill himself, Newton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Jack Redlinger told the AJC. However, he would not give officers his location, so 911 dispatchers tracked the call to the area of Riverdale First United Methodist Church, about 40 miles from where the child was taken.
There, responding officers spotted Darian Bennett’s vehicle with a door open in front of the church, Redlinger said. As officers checked the vehicle, gunshots were heard coming from behind the building.
Officers then found Jaquari Bennett shot to death in a secluded wooded area behind the church, the news station reported. Darian Bennett also had taken his life, police said.
Channel 2 spoke with a pastor associated with the church who said Darian Bennett was not a member and had no connection to the church.
Credit: Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Credit: Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Police said two other children were in the home at the time of the shooting, according to the news station. They were uninjured and dialed 911.
GBI officials said the Newton County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the deadly incident.
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