Manju Gurung Poonmagar, 37, was shot and killed in the parking area of her Westminster Square Apartments complex in Marietta after returning from a late shift at a BP station near Windy Hill Road. Police found her in the driver’s seat of her car after it had crashed into a parked vehicle; contemporaneous reporting places the shooting and discovery in the early hours of December 31, 2013, though some memorial records list January 2, 2014 as the date of death. Neighbors remembered her as hardworking and honest, highlighting the tragedy of violence occurring where she should have been safe.

Cobb County police arrested 26-year-old Sergio Vera-Lule of Smyrna on January 10, 2014, charging him with Poonmagar’s murder and linking him to a series of armed robberies in the Marietta area. Prosecutors later said he followed her from the BP to her apartment, attempted to rob her and shot her in the head.