A Georgia murder suspect on the run killed himself when police knocked on his door Monday — even though they weren’t coming for him.
The US Marshals Fugitive Task Force was following up on a tip about someone who might have information on the four inmates who escaped from a Georgia jail earlier this month when they were greeted with bullets flying through the door.
After a SWAT team arrived, a woman led them inside the Macon apartment, where 23-year-old Christian Demond Williams was suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Bibb County Sheriff David Davis said.
Williams — who had been missing since being kidnapped seven months ago — was rushed to a hospital in critical condition but succumbed to his injuries the following morning.
Williams had been missing since March 5, the night before he was supposed to be tried for murder in the 2021 shooting death of a man at a Macon convenience store.
A security camera showed Williams, in a red hat, being attacked by two other men on the front porch of his home — though neither Davis nor the city district attorney believed the suspected murderer’s ruse.
“It is sort of suspicious that a person gets kidnapped under surveillance cameras on the day that they were supposed to appear in court,” Davis said.
The woman at the apartment was charged with aiding an escape, according to jail records.
It’s not clear whether she or Williams had any ties to the real reason the Marshals had turned up on their doorstep: the hunt for four inmates, including another suspected murderer, that busted out of the Bibb County Detention Center on Oct. 16.
Joey Fournier, Marc Kerry Anderson, Johnifer Dernard Barnwell and Chavis Demaryo Stokes escaped through a damaged day room window and through a hole that had been cut in the surrounding fence, officials said.
A blue Dodge Challenger pulled up to the jail and helped the inmates carry out their getaway plan.
Surveillance footage shows that the car had been at the jail earlier in the night and appeared to show someone tampering with the fence.
Bibb County deputies said one has been arrested in a car theft and aiding the escape.
Davis said Monday that tracking down the escapees was his department’s “singular focus.”
“We’re going to get you,” Davis said, addressing the men. “We’re going to find you. The footsteps are moving closer.”
A combined $73,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the inmates.
Fournier, 52, is a white male with gray hair and blue eyes who is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. He was being held on a murder charge after he was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend in February 2022.
Barnwell, 37, is a Black male with braids and is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 190 pounds. He was being held on federal drug charges.
Stokes, 29, is a Black male with short black hair and is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. He was being held on charges of possession of a firearm and drug trafficking.
Anderson, 24, is a Black male with dreadlocks and is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 165 pounds. He is charged with aggravated assault.
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