Double slaying could signal treacherous trajectory for Richmond County
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Sunday night’s slaying of a mother and her grown daughter was the third double homicide in recent weeks for Richmond County.
If that seems unusually high, that’s because it is.
According to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, there have been two double homicides in 2021, matching the number for 2020.
That doesn’t seem alarming at first, but consider this: We’re less than a quarter of the way through the year and have already matched the number of double homicides for all of last year.
And because one of the most memorable recent crimes was a double homicide near the end of last year, that means Richmond County has seen three homicides in recent weeks. That case left two men dead inside Johnson’s Beauty & Barber Salon on Eve Street.
Investigators arrested and charged Cortez Bernard Berry, Marquise Harris and Kazarie Middleton with the Nov. 23 murders of Meguel D. Freeman, 48, and Wyman K. Scott, 34, both of Augusta. Freeman was a barber and Wyman was a customer.
More recently, another double homicide shocked the community.
On Feb. 17, Hilton Turner Sr., 75, and his wife, Jeanette, 73, were found shot dead at their home in the 100 block of Hale Street.
Neighbors were stunned by the slayings in a normally quiet area.
Residents felt similarly Monday in the 5000 block of Copse Circle, where the bodies of 46-year-old Tammy Briggs and her 21-year-old daughter April Williams were found. The suspect, James Briggs, 58, later took his own life in the 100 block of Craig Sims Parkway
If Richmond County sees no more double homicides this year, we’ll match last year’s total of two.
That’s a typical number lately, statistics show.
The question is whether we can hold that line.
By the numbers
Here’s a look at double homicides and total homicides over the past five years in Richmond County:
- 2021: Two homicides out of eight so far have been double slayings
- 2020: Two homicides out of 43 total were double slayings
- 2019: Two homicides out of 38 total were double slayings
- 2018: Zero homicides out of 37 total were double slayings
- 2017: One homicide out of 30 total was a double slaying
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