On the night of November 19, 2017, Chelsea Beller, 29, a restaurant manager at Barcelona Wine Bar on Howell Mill Road in Atlanta, was fatally shot during an armed robbery as staff were closing around 2:30 a.m. Three masked men forced their way in, bound employees with electrical tape, and forced Beller to lead them to the office and open the safe. Although she complied, one of the assailants shot her in the shoulder. She was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital and later died of her injuries.

The Atlanta Police Department later matched DNA from the scene to Samuel Ott, which led to identification and arrests of three other men: Carlous Bailey, Terry Jones, and Ira Williams. By February 2018 all four were in custody and were indicted on multiple counts including murder, felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, kidnapping, and false imprisonment. The case remained a focus for investigators and the community as Beller’s family remembered her as vibrant and kind-hearted.