Good afternoon. I'm Janet Moon,
the chief of police here at
Peachtree City Police Department.
Today I'm going to be joined
by assistant chief Matt Myers.
I want to extend my thanks to the
detectives and the officers of
Peachtree City for their tireless
work over the last 31 hours to bring
a resolution to this homicide.
Peachtree City would also like to thank
the Fayette County Sheriff's Office
for supplying assistance and tactical
support and execution of arrest and
search warrants related to this case,
the Gainesville Police Department
and Hall County Sheriff's
Office for similar support,
and the execution of a search
warrant in their jurisdictions.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation
for supplying crime scene resources
and the Fayette County District
Attorney's Office for legal support.
I am now going to turn the press conference
over to assistant chief Matt Myers.
Thank you, chief.
I'm going to give a brief
statement and then I'll take
follow up questions after that.
So yesterday, February 21st at
about 6:00 o'clock in the morning,
Peachtree City police officers responded
to an apartment on Peachtree Station Circle,
that's the Greens at Braylin
regarding a medical call.
A 15 year old female had been found
deceased in her bedroom by her mother.
A final determination on cause of death is
pending a review by the medical examiner,
but an injury to the victim's head
appears consistent with a gunshot wound.
That is again, however,
pending final determination from
the medical examiner's office.
Detectives quickly identified 3 suspects,
all of whom were acquaintances
with the victim.
Yesterday afternoon,
one of the suspects was arrested
following a foot chase with the
Fayette County Sheriff's Office.
Another suspect was arrested from
the same residence in Fayetteville
where he was detained from the
same residence in Fayetteville.
By early this morning,
the third suspect was also in custody.
All three of these suspects are
now at the Fayette County Jail.
All three of them are also
charged with murder.
Don't take any questions.
Can you talk a little bit about the
relationship between the victim
and the suspects in this case?
How did they get to the home
where they invited there?
Any background that you have on that?
I can't comment too much on the exact,
you know, nature of the
relationship between them.
We do know that they are acquaintances.
They have known each other for
at least some period of time,
and this was not a random act.
They knew whose apartment they were
at and it was in some way related to
matters between these individuals.
We're still investigating an
exact motive and the exact
role of each person involved,
so we'll reveal more details on that
if and when they become available.
This obviously happened
overnight at some point.
For a night period when the mom
I came to found her at 6:00 AM.
Did anyone report any gunshots in
the apartment complex before that
or over the night overnight period?
We did not have any complaints of a gunshot.
So, so the cause of death is
still under investigation,
but you as you stay here that there
was a wound right to her head.
Can you describe that at all?
There was an Android or head that
appears consistent with a gunshot wound,
but it's not proper to comment on
that until the medical examiner has
completed their examination of the body.
The the victim, Madison,
was a student at Whitewater High
School here in Fayette County.
Can you pronounce your full name for?
I am afraid I may mispronounce
her last name, so it's been
provided to you in writing.
I would defer to your
interpretation or follow up.
I will give you my my best justice Smith,
who is 18 years old and a resident
of Fayetteville, Jacobian Brown,
a resident of Fayetteville who is
also 18 years old, and Yeshua Mathis,
18 years old, of Fayetteville.
That these particular,
I don't know the answer to that
right off the top of my head.
Sense of motive.
We can't really comment
on a motive at this time.
That's something we're still investigating.
Again, we do know that they were acquainted
and this was not a random incident,
but the exact nature of the motive and
the role of each person involved is
still something we're investigating.
Can you take us through the timeline
in detail how you were able to
identify these three teams of the
suspects and how they were each found?
The timeline will be very loose,
but I'll say from a general perspective,
at the scene very early after the report,
we had identified 3 potential suspects.
They were identified using a
variety of sources and methods to
come up with their identification.
As we're continuing investigation,
I'm not going to comment extensively
on these sources or methods of the
their identification, but I can say
that by early yesterday afternoon,
two of them were detained.
I was in the approximately noon
to one time frame.
I I'm not exact on that
because that's from memory.
They were detained,
but two of them were detained in
Fayetteville that included Jacoby
and Brown and Justice Smith.
By later in the evening,
an arrest warrant had been issued
for Yeshua Mathis and we were
seeking to get him into custody.
During the course of that overnight,
we executed a search warrant
at a home in Gainesville,
GA and seized a vehicle that
we believe belongs to Yeshua,
but he was later located.
Early this morning at a
residence in Fayetteville,
where he was taken into custody
with assistance from the
Fayette County Sheriff's Office.
You know why this vehicle was in Gainesville?
He has relatives or acquaintances
up there in Gainesville,
where the vehicle was located,
where they live with their parents.
Fayetteville and get where
they where they living alone,
where they live with their parents.
I know at least one of them
is living with their parent,
but I I don't know enough on
the status of the other two to
comment intelligently on that.
Are they also still in high school as well?
I don't know the answer to
that or any. Recover.
I'm not gonna comment on weapon
recovery at this point because
pending some forensic evaluation and
the determination from the medical
examiner about the cause of death,
we may or may not have anything
in custody that's related to a
the injury done to the victim.
Are you guys planning to go through that?
We do have the victim cell phone.
And what are your plans for that?
Ohh, in the course of any investigation,
that's something that if we can access
a cell phone, we want to, you know,
give consideration to what we find in there.
So that's a pretty just routine for
an investigation if it's applicable.
What have you been able to glean from the
family and talking to them, I'm sure they.
One calls saying that it looked like
somebody had broken into the bedroom window.
Are you able to confirm that and just can you
tell us how the families feeling right now?
The family obviously,
understandably is is very distraught.
I don't know how much more I could
really comment beyond that because
I really could never do justice to
what they they must be going through.
And in terms of what happened
after the scene, you're more or
less correct about the 911 call.
I can tell you that there
was a lot of speculation.
About the method of entry and that did
not come from the Police Department,
I believe some people in the community
saw a bag over a window in the
apartment building and speculated
that there was a broken window.
However, that window was taken by
the Georgia Bureau of Investigations
Crime Scene unit and its entirety
for processing of evidence,
and that's why there was a
a bag covering a window.
I'm not going to get too much into
details on exactly what arrangements
were in place when these people
or some combination of them made.
Three into the apartment as that's
something we're still investigating.
So you don't know if the victim might
have let them into the apartment at
some point during before 6:00 AM
that that's possible.
There's a ring camera at
the door to that apartment.
Have you guys gotten that video?
Are you going through that
as well? We have reviewed
all of the video available,
but I can't discuss the exact
findings of each video at this point.
Are there any other suspects?
We have no further suspects. Outstanding.
You mentioned here in
your release that more?
Charges could come.
What other charges are
potentially on the table?
If I had a firm answer to that,
we probably would have
gone ahead and issue them.
But we are still sorting
through all of the evidence,
all of the interviews and
making final determinations,
which is pretty routine in this type of case.
We want to go ahead and issue the
most important charge to detain
the suspects and then continue
our investigation and determine
what charges were applicable and
to which parties are applicable.
This in Peachtree City wanna thank
your chief was mentioning earlier
was talking about you know golf court
carts and things like that and you
know minor infractions of murder
situation like this is is something
that you don't hear about a lot here.
So what is your reaction to that.
So fortunately in Peachtree City we do
have a very low rate of violent crime.
This is the first murder reported
in Peachtree City this year.
The last one of these we investigated
was mid last year sometime around May.
So fortunately we don't
have this type of crime.
Peachtree City very often.
But crime in and of itself is
an issue in all communities.
So it's something we continue to
be vigilant about and always are
aware of the fact that violent
crime can happen anywhere.
Do you know if any of these suspects are
implicated or accused in other crimes?
I don't know enough to comment on that.
And then what's your message to
not only family in this case,
but neighbors in that apartment complex?
I know there's anything I can ever
say to a family that would make this
situation any better other than we have.
Worked tirelessly, many of my
detectives and officers worked for
about 30 hours straight trying to do
what we can to bring justice to that,
and I hope in some small portion that
may bring them a degree of peace for
the other people in the Community.
I just want to reiterate that
this is not a random act.
We do have the suspects in custody
and we don't have any reason to
believe there is an ongoing threat
to anyone else in the Community
in connection with this crime.
Anything we left out? Anything
of note that we wanted to add?
No, Sir. Not that I can think of right now.
Any other questions? All right.
Thank you all for coming.