In the early morning of July 28, 2010, 32-year-old Japhila M. Thomas was fatally shot at the Auburn Place Apartments in Atlanta, near the Downtown Connector. The shooting occurred before 7 a.m. and left a family and neighborhood searching for answers.Japhila Thomas’s girlfriend and mother of his two children, Okimi Redding, said she believed the killing was a robbery; a witness at the scene described two teenage males as the assailants.

The Atlanta Police Department gave a different preliminary assessment, saying the shooting appears to be drug-related. Those conflicting early accounts have complicated the inquiry.No arrests or publicly identified suspects have been announced, and the case remains unsolved. A memorial service was held on August 5, 2010, at the Greater Victory Christian Center and he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Forest Park.

If anyone has information about that morning or the two teenagers described by the witness, please come forward.