In the early morning hours of April 5, 2014, 25-year-old Jennifer Ann Gatewood was found unresponsive from a gunshot wound in a Garden Inn and Suites room on Shannon Parkway in Union City, Georgia. She was a mother to a four-year-old boy. Police quickly identified her boyfriend, 32-year-old Irwin Clint Dresbach, and his mother, 53-year-old Lola Connie Stephens-Smith, as suspects and sought them after issuing felony murder warrants; the pair were reported to have fled in a white 1998 Dodge Durango and were considered armed and dangerous.

Stephens-Smith later turned herself in and cooperated with investigators; prosecutors determined she likely would not be charged. Dresbach was found more than two weeks later and arrested without incident at a hotel near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He was booked into the Fulton County Jail and faced charges including murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; a grand jury later indicted him for malice murder and two counts of felony murder. His convictions were ultimately affirmed on appeal.

Did anyone in Union City or the surrounding area have contact with Jennifer in the days before April 5, 2014, or notice the white 1998 Dodge Durango leaving town?