On the evening of May 18, 2014, a planned marijuana sale on Cardell Road in Austell, Georgia, turned into a deadly ambush when both sides intended to rob the other. Twenty-year-old David Blount of Smyrna was shot and killed in the resulting gunfire; 24-year-old Ryan Christopher Bobbitt of Marietta was also killed and others were wounded.

Two 19-year-olds who were with Blount, Nasjee Raquib Griffin and Jordan Malik Hughes, were arrested. Hughes suffered wounds in the shootout. Both Griffin and Hughes were charged with manslaughter and gang-related offenses and later pleaded guilty. Adrian Ancell Moore, 23, of Mableton, and 22-year-old Tyrell Lavance Vereen of Powder Springs, who accompanied Bobbitt as buyers, were also arrested and pleaded guilty to manslaughter and firearms possession; they received 20-year prison sentences.

The case centers on a transaction that was secretly planned as a robbery by both parties and escalated into mutual gunfire with fatal consequences. Did anyone in the Austell or Smyrna communities know these men or the groups involved and have information that hasn’t been shared?