On the afternoon of March 26, 2014, 34-year-old Nicholas Hagood of Marietta was found in the parking lot of Windsor Square Townhomes on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in southwest Atlanta with at least one gunshot wound to the chest and died at the scene. Investigators treated the incident as an armed robbery that turned violent.
Police identified two primary suspects early on, 19-year-old Demetruis Mollyworld Fortson and 24-year-old Jeremy Stray J Southern, and later indicted Fortson, Southern and three others — Tavius Bates, Octavious Jordan, and Stephen Willis — on charges including malice murder, felony murder predicated on armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, and aggravated assault. A Fulton County jury later convicted Demetruis Fortson of felony murder, armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony; Stephen Willis was also convicted in connection with the crimes.
Evidence in the case linked the defendants to a separate armed robbery about 40 minutes earlier in a nearby county; items taken in that incident were found near Hagood’s body. An eyewitness at the apartment complex described seeing a man with dreads, later identified as Hagood, looking out of place and slightly disoriented beside a car just before the shooting.
If anyone knew Nicholas Hagood or saw him in the Windsor Square area that afternoon, what information can be shared with investigators?