In May 1975 Michael Priest was killed after offering a stranger a ride in Forsyth County, Georgia. The stranger, identified as Jack Howard Potts, had earlier shot Gene Snyder during a ride and then, covered in blood, went to a nearby home where Priest was having supper with his pregnant wife and her parents. Priest agreed to drive Potts to a hospital. On a dirt road Potts took Priest into a field, forced him to his knees and shot him in the back of the head.

Potts was later tried and convicted. In 1976 a Forsyth County jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death; he was also convicted in Cobb County of kidnapping with bodily injury and armed robbery in connection with Priest and received another death sentence. The initial death sentence for the murder was overturned in 1984 and Potts was resentenced to death after a new trial in 1988.

Does anyone have additional details about Michael Priest’s life in Forsyth County or knew the family who survived him?