On a December morning in 2017, 21-year-old Donjinae Jackson-Neals was found fatally shot in her Decatur, Georgia, apartment on Glen Hollow Lane. Responders located a gunshot wound to her head. Her fiancé, 23-year-old Carl Williams, called 911 and said the shooting was an accident that happened while they were playing with a gun; he claimed he was demonstrating self-defense and the weapon discharged when she tried to slap it away.

Investigators found a burn mark on Jackson-Neals’s face consistent with the muzzle being pressed against her skin when it fired, and neighbors reported hearing a struggle before the shot. Police say Williams threw the gun in a creek after the shooting, though authorities later recovered the weapon. Williams was arrested and charged with murder. His first trial ended in a mistrial after a brawl in the courtroom; a later trial resulted in conviction for malice murder and related charges and a life sentence with the possibility of parole.