Tony Kilgore was 15 when he was killed on December 30, 1987, inside his grandmother’s DeKalb County home near Atlanta. Court records describe Tony and his grandmother, Willie Myrt Lowe, found shot twice in the head at very close range in a bedroom; the crime scene was described as execution-style. Both victims had spent the night in the house; Lowe’s other grandson and Tony’s cousin, Eric Lynn Ferrell, left early and later returned while police were present, distraught. Investigators recovered more than $500 on Ferrell, .22-caliber shell casings in his pocket, and a .22-caliber revolver in his bedroom that ballistics linked to the killings. Cash and rolled coins were also missing from the home, and the state prosecuted a robbery motive alongside the murders.

Eric Lynn Ferrell was arrested, tried, and in 1988 convicted of the murders, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; he was sentenced to death and Georgia appellate courts later upheld the convictions and sentence. What questions remain about the case or about Tony’s life and the family circumstances that preceded that morning?