On a December morning in 2020, 15-year-old Keshawn Gainer, a Black male, was found dead in a wooded area across the street from his home on Westchester Circle in Athens, Georgia. Investigators described a wound to his neck and reported bullet casings at the scene; his arms were outstretched when his body was discovered.

The Athens-Clarke County Police Department opened a homicide investigation that led to the arrest of 20-year-old Kenyas Trevion Yearby, an Athens resident who was on probation at the time for possession of a loaded firearm on a school campus. A Clarke County grand jury later indicted Yearby on counts including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer.

At trial Yearby was acquitted of malice murder and felony murder but was convicted of aggravated assault and received a 20-year prison sentence. The motive for the shooting has not been publicly released. Did anyone in the Athens area have information about Keshawn’s movements or who might have been around Westchester Circle that morning?