The Fayette Citizen-News Page
Friday, April 2, 1999
Murder in N. Fayette?

By CAL BEVERLY
Staff Writer

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An unidentified black man found Wednesday night in a burning sports utility vehicle in north Fayette County is being treated by investigators as a homicide, Maj. Bruce Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department said Thursday.

"The body had multiple gunshot wounds," Jordan said, "and the vehicle was intentionally set afire."

Jordan said as many as 14 law enforcement officers working from a "mobile precinct" spent all night in sometimes "pouring rain" developing leads in the case.

Whoever set the fire also tried to disguise the identity of what officers now know is a rental Ford SUV, Jordan said.

Deputies received a "report of gunshots" and arrived at the scene about 9:10 p.m. Wednesday, Jordan said. They found the SUV "engulfed in flames with a body on the passenger's side," Jordan said. The SUV "had been pulled off into the mud" inside New Haven subdivision, a new, so-far houseless development off Kenwood Road near Ga. Highway 279, Jordan said.

"We are following leads" in the homicide investigation, Jordan said.

Jordan noted the homicide marks the first official use of the department's new mobile precinct, a former recreation vehicle turned into a rolling command post using drug forfeiture money.


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