On the evening of March 31, 2017, 38-year-old Angela Juanette Bishop drove from her South Carolina home to Decatur, Georgia, to visit her husband, 42-year-old James Beard, at his second-floor apartment in the Hidden Villas complex on Panthersville Road. Her four children remained in the car while she knocked on the door. When Beard opened the door he shot her, then carried her down the stairs and placed her inside a gold Toyota Camry where officers later found her dead at about 11:30 p.m.

Family members described the couple’s 13-year relationship as tumultuous with a history of domestic violence; Beard had been arrested twice in South Carolina and Angela had told relatives he had threatened her with a gun. The couple had married only a few weeks before the shooting, and Angela had told family she felt she had made a mistake. Beard told police the gun went off after he opened the door; a bystander was asked to call 911 and Beard discarded a .40 caliber Beretta behind the building. The four children were placed with relatives.