An Augusta teen who was killed at a mobile home park this month was an innocent bystander struck during a gunfight between two men, the victim’s mother says.
Ronald Lee Haugabook Jr., 17, was laid to rest on Saturday by his family, two weeks after he was gunned down while simply walking to his brother’s residence at Number One Mobile Home Park on Deans Bridge Road, according to Dorothy Johnson.
Moses McGahee, 33, of Augusta, was recently booked on charges of murder and weapon possession. Convicted felon Frederick D. Grace, 42, was previously charged with murder in the death.
“I would like for it to be known that my son was not the intended target, and McGahee and Grace were shooting at each other and killed my son,” Johnson said. “When all my son was doing was leaving his home to go to a neighboring house. His older siblings had to watch him lay there and take his last breath.”
Haugabook was fatally shot at 9:37 p.m. on that Saturday, Nov. 5. The sheriff’s office does not comment on the motives in murder cases, but the teen’s mother said she didn’t want people thinking her son had anything to do with his own death.
“He literally had nothing to with it,” Johnson said.
The mother has been told that the suspects were fighting over money and didn’t even live at the mobile home park when they began shooting at each other. Her son got caught in the crossfire.
The victim’s family used GoFundMe and help from Johnson’s workplace to finance this weekend’s burial of the teen. Haugabook was Richmond County’s 36th homicide for the year.
“If you knew my son, to know him was to love him,” Johnson wrote on GoFundMe. “His smile was contagious. Everyone that speaks of him remembers him for his smile.”
McGahee has previously been convicted of cocaine possession and theft by taking. Grace is a felon convicted of burglary in 1999 He was given probation in that case. He also has convictions for simple battery in 2005 and giving false information to police in 2006. Drug dealing charges from 2002 were dismissed.
