Richmond County authorities have identified a juvenile girl and a male as suspects in one of two new Augusta homicides.
The sheriff’s office has not named the suspects, but warrants accuse the pair in the tragic death of 15-year-old Devayn Grissam. The Augusta teen was fatally shot Wednesday night at 2346 Helsinki Drive and pronounced dead after arriving at Wellstar MCG Health.
The teen’s death brought the county’s homicide count to 39, which tops last year’s total count of 38 homicides.
But the homicide count quickly climbed to 40 with the Thursday morning discovery of a man’s body in Elliott Park on Lumpkin Road. Deputies responded to an unresponsive person lying on the ground and found the body of 59-year-old Michael Whitfield, who was homeless. He died of sustained blunt force trauma, authorities said. (If you have a photo of Michael to share, please text it to 803-487-3224.)
The sheriff’s office has not commented on possible suspects in that case.
Meanwhile, the aunt of Devayn, Telisha Grissam, mourned her nephew online with a heart-wrenching Facebook post: “Please pray for our family. My nephew just got killed. Y’all please put these guns down. 15 years old and he’s gone.”
On Thursday afternoon, Grissam posted that “They got them.” But the sheriff’s office has not confirmed the arrests. The agency does not always make press releases on murder arrests.
There were 38 homicide victims last year. This year’s count promises to be higher. Among this year’s homicides:
The youngest victim is 3½-month-old Josiah Noel Seright, a baby who died from hypothermia and respiratory failure after being wrapped in a wet blanket and placed in a wet car seat in front of a motel air conditioning unit set at 61 degrees, according to warrants. He was pronounced dead after being found unresponsive at the Budget Inn at 1616 Gordon Highway. This led to murder charges against his teen mother and two others.
The oldest victim is 86-year-old Kimiko Stewart, an Augusta woman who was shot by her husband in a June murder-suicide on Byron Place, authorities said. The husband, 86-year-old Jerome Stewart, was found inside the residence with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and died at Wellstar MCG Hospital.
Seven teenagers have now been killed by homicide in Richmond County this year, including the April shooting death of 14-year-old Anthony Harrison. Fifteen-year-old Darryaun Tanksley is facing charges of murder in the case. A sheriff’s report says an apartment was struck by gunfire, and Harrison was reportedly killed in the gunfire.
Harrison’s mother, Tequila Beasley, was heartbroken by the death. One of her posts went viral with a photo of her kissing her son. “There is absolutely NO UNDERSTANDING,” Beasley wrote. “I now have NOTHING TO LIVE FOR.”
During his failed campaign for re-election this year, Sheriff Richard Roundtree talked about the problem of gun violence in the Augusta area. He called it a nationwide problem.
“No one has found that magic wand yet to curb this youth gun violence. So we are not immune to that. So that is where a lot of our focus is,” he said.
The sheriff saw a low homicide count in his first few years in office, with only 18 in 2013. But the numbers continued to climb for at least seven years straight, jumping to 43 in 2020.
Eugene “Gino Rock” Brantley takes over on Jan. 1 after defeating Roundtree. He has pledged to bring back community policing.
