What’s causing string of violence across the two-state region?

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Two people dead, eight people shot, and one person stabbed all in 12 hours. These police lights were a common site in neighborhoods from Augusta to Aiken. Yesterday alone there were four shootings and a stabbing in the two counties.

The first shooting happened at 2:20 Thursday afternoon off Miranda Road where deputies found one man shot. Less than 30 minutes later at 2:45 p.m., a shooting on Deans Bridge Road where two women were shot. Just a few hours later at 6:30 off East Telfair Street, four more women are shot, two of them killed. Then in Aiken County deputies responded to Beech Island around 8:45 p.m. Thursday night to find another woman shot. Fast forward about six hours to 3 a.m. Friday, when one man is stabbed off Ascauga Lake Road.

At this time, Richmond County deputies say they don’t believe the three shootings in Augusta are related.

For years, Melissa Greene has called the area behind Magnolia Court Apartments home.

“I felt a little safe before I came when I first moved down here but then like a couple years later it started getting worse,” said Melissa Greene, a neighbor of a victim.

But now she says this isn’t a place you let you kids run around. There are already memorials for the two women murdered here, 26-year-old Tishaa Moulton and 40-year-old Latoya Oglesby. Two others in the hospital. The sheriff’s office was not able to tell us the condition of the survivors. But Melissa Greene says she knew one of the women who ed away.

“They’re truly going to be missed. And I pray for the family to everyone that’s surrounded them,” she said.

Sources tell us there were children there when this violence happened. But before shots rang out here there were two others.

According to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, someone was shot in the leg on Miranda Road. The agency tells us that no one is in custody just yet.

And just a few minutes later another shooting off Deans Bridge Road. Two women also shot and police say they’re going to be OK. But it landed one man in jail. Police say an argument over money led to Jerard Fowler to allegedly reach for a gun.

And as shots rang out all across the CSRA we spoke to several people nearby the Magnolia Court Apartments.

“I’m praying everything gets better, the case gets solved. And the ones who did it they prosecute them, and no bond,” said Greene.

Answers on how safe people felt in the neighborhood were mixed. Some say they feel just fine living in the area. Others tell us it’s a dangerous place to be. But none of those people besides the woman we interviewed were willing to say that on camera.

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