A murder suspect—who had supposedly been kidnapped in March mere hours before he was scheduled to go on trial—shot himself Monday after firing at U.S. Marshals looking for four men who escaped from a Georgia jail on Oct. 16, Bibb County Sheriff’s office has announced.
The U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force went to a Macon, Ga. apartment after investigators received a tip about a person of interest in the case of the four escapees.
When U.S. Marshals knocked on the door of the apartment and identified themselves, however, bullets were fired through the closed door.
When a SWAT team arrived, a woman inside the apartment led them to a wounded man, who, she said, had shot himself. The man was taken to a local hospital, but died early on Tuesday. He was identified as 23-year-old Christian Demond Williams.
“He is a person that, we feel, has knowledge of where they might be, that has knowledge of the escape, and who has some connection to at least one or two of the people we’re looking for,” Bibb County Sheriff David Davis told 13WMAZ in reference to the 4 escaped convicts.
The woman at the apartment, Mykia Mynesha Williams, was arrested and charged with aiding an escape, jail records show. It remains unclear whether she is related to Mr. Williams.
According to the Sheriff, no shots were fired by any officers.
Mr. Williams was reported as having been kidnapped on March 6, just hours before he was scheduled to be tried for murder in the 2021 shooting death of a man at a Macon convenience store. He had been out of jail on a $100,000 bond since January.
At the time, the Macon District Attorney’s Office released a video of Mr. Williams’ alleged kidnapping, which showed him being attacked by two men on the front porch of his home. Both Mr. Davis and District Attorney Anita Howard expressed their doubts about the authenticity of the alleged kidnapping, considering its timing.
According to Ms. Howard, there were “indications” Mr. Williams’ ankle monitor had been tampered with before the alleged kidnapping.
Mr. Davis told WMAZ-TV in June that the bail bond service in charge of tracking Mr. Williams’ movements failed to notify officials that the monitor’s battery was dead. The company also didn’t notify Mr. Williams to charge it.
Escapees Still At Large
The Bibb County Sheriff stated that tracking down the 4 escapees is his office’s “singular focus.”
The four men were able to make their way out of the prison via a window in a second-floor dayroom of a central Georgia prison, and then escaped through the fence at night.
On Friday, deputies found the blue Dodge Challenger that was visible on the prison security cameras the night of the jailbreak. According to the Sheriff, the driver appeared to tamper with the fence and leave a number of items, which investigators believe the men used to help them escape.
The Challenger later returned to pick up the four at about 3 a.m., the Sheriff said.
The initial $1,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the four men has gone up to $73,000—courtesy of the sheriff’s office, the FBI, Macon Regional Crime Stoppers, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The four escapees have been identified as Joey Fournier, Marc Kerry Anderson, Johnifer Dernard Barnwell, and Chavis Demaryo Stokes. Mr. Fourier was held on murder charges and Mr. Anderson was charged with aggravated assault, while the other two escapees were being held on drug-related charges.
