Alleged Winder killer's first wife's death draws renewed scrutiny

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By Christian Boone

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two days after James Lynn Jr. was arrested and charged with his third wife's slaying, authorities announced they are reviewing the circumstances of his first wife's death.

James Lynn Jr., seen in the mugshot from a previous arrest, has been charged with killing his wife.

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On January 13, 1990, a pregnant Julie Johnson Lynn was found dead in her Metter home from a single gunshot wound to the head. Family members remain convinced she did not take her own life, as was concluded by a Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner.

GBI spokesman John Bankhead confirmed Monday the agency is conducting a "preliminary review to determine if an investigation into her death needs to be reopened."

James Lynn Jr., 42, was charged with felony murder Saturday after family members identified the body of 38-year-old Tonya Faye Lynn, found dumped in a well the day before. Lynn eventually confessed to killing his wife, according to investigators. She died from blunt force trauma to the head, Winder Police Chief Dennis Dorsey told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday.

The alleged killer married his first wife less than two months before she died. He remarried a little more than a year later, though second wife Tamra Shaw, also of Metter, filed for divorce less than three years later. She did not return calls seeking comment.

The former Tonya Royster married Lynn on Halloween, 1995. The couple had four children and had recently reconciled, Dorsey said. Earlier this year, a Barrow County judge granted Tonya Lynn a temporary protective order from her husband, prohibiting any contact, though it had since been lifted.

James Lynn was charged with battery in May after an incident in which he allegedly threw his wife off a mattress, injuring her knee. During one incident in which police were dispatched to the couple's home, Tonya Lynn told an officer her husband "has a violent history."

Investigators say Lynn killed his wife in their Winder residence sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. One of their four children was home at the time but did not witness the killing, Dorsey said.

Lynn was reported missing Wednesday after her niece received a text message from her aunt's cell phone around asking her to take care of the woman’s children. The text had been sent earlier that morning, police said.

Police soon zeroed in on her husband, arresting him early Friday afternoon on obstruction charges after detectives concluded he gave them false information on his wife's disappearance, police said.

"Over the course of the investigation his statements were not consistent," Dorsey said. On Friday he told investigators where they could find his third wife's body.