Questions linger in local tragedies that claim lives of 3 young children
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Investigators are trying to get answers about separate tragedies that took the lives of three young children and a mother in the CSRA.
Here’s what we know:
10-month-old twins and mother die in ‘murder-suicide'
What led up to the deaths of a mother and her twin 10-month-olds? That’s what investigators are trying to learn after the bodies of all three were found in a submerged car near the Augusta Regional Airport.
An incident report from the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office currently lists the case as a “murder-suicide.” The report only details what investigators found when they arrived.
Officials say a fisherman spotted the car at Mayor’s Pond and called law enforcement just before 5 p.m. Friday, according to the Richmond County Coroner’s Office.
The bodies of 25-year-old old Shaquia Philpot and her children Cassius and Caysen Williams were found in the car.
The coroner pronounced them dead just a few hours later.
The only conclusion investigators have arrived at so far is that Philpot drove her and her children into the pond for “unknown reasons.”
“When I found out it was her, I was stuck, and I didn’t believe it,” Philpot’s step-brother, Darius Coleman, said. “To this day, I still don’t believe it.”
Other family say the woman they knew was happy, loving, and a wonderful mother.
“I talked to her three or four days ago, and we was laughing and joking,” Coleman said.
Friends and community honored Shaquia and the boys by setting up a memorial at the pond and releasing balloons in their memory.
For now, her loved ones wonder, but her for the strong woman they say she was.
RCSO says they hope the autopsy results will give them some kind of clue about how and why this happened. Until then, they say the investigation is ongoing.
Fatal shooting of 2-year-old
How did a 2-year-old get possession of a loaded gun? That’s likely a question authorities are asking as they investigate the case of a boy who died after accidentally shooting himself in Graniteville.
Details are still limited, but the Aiken County Sheriff's Office says Jamarious Rogers accidentally fired a gun Saturday, shooting himself in the upper body. Authorities say it happened on Gentle Bend Court in the Sage Creek neighborhood of Graniteville around 8:30 p.m.
He was taken to Augusta University Medical Center in Augusta, where the coroner says he died just a few hours later at 11:32 p.m.
An autopsy will be done in Newberry.
The Aiken County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that 18-year-old Zayalan Paige, who lives at the address where the incident happened, was charged with obstruction of justice.
In the incident report describing what happened when authorities were called after the shooting, a deputy wrote of finding the boy’s mother sitting on the roadway holding her son in her arms. The deputy could see that the boy was suffering a gunshot wound to the chest.
First responders arrived and began treating the victim.
The officer saw a man later identified as Zayalan Paige “frantically running around the scene,” according to the report.
The officer asked him where the gun was, and he answered that it was his gun and it was gone, according to the report.
Authorities detained Paige, according to the report.
The Aiken County Sheriff’s Office is continuing to investigate.
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