Prestiss Lamar Wells, identified in some records as Prentiss Wells, was a 57-year-old Black man murdered in Newton County, Georgia, on February 13, 1992. Court records describe that Wells often carried substantial cash from buying and reselling used goods. Two men, Joseph Martin Barnes and Tim Brown, came to know him and, about a month before the killing, discussed robbing him after noticing his habit.

On the day of the crime the three rode together; on a dirt road Barnes demanded Wells’ money after seeing $5,800 in Wells’ pocket. Medical and crime-scene testimony at trial showed Wells was beaten severely, shot twice in the torso, staggered about forty feet, and then received a final contact shot to the back of the head. Wells was unarmed. Barnes took the cash and the two men fled, later arrested in different states. Barnes was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, and armed robbery and ultimately received life without parole after the death sentence was vacated; Brown pleaded guilty to felony murder and testified for the prosecution.

Did anyone who knew Wells or his flea market business see him with large amounts of cash in the weeks before February 13, 1992?