Atlanta police make 5 arrests in 3 separate slayings

Atlanta police said they have cleared three open murder cases with five arrests this week.

“Our fugitive unit has been very busy,” Maj. Adam Lee said at a news conference Friday.

The arrests included Kelvin Watts, 26, and Bobby Hardy, 21, wanted in the high-profile killing of Tiara Bogan Jones near Turner Field on Sept. 26, Lee said. Watts was arrested after a Crime Stoppers tip.

Few other details were released, saying the investigations were still ongoing.

The 25-year-old Jones, who died “in a brazen hail of gunfire” after the car she was driving was ambushed by shooters in another vehicle on Milton Avenue, is not believed to have been the target of the killers, Lee said.

Police were investigating whether the two people riding with Jones from a restaurant may have known Watts and Hardy, the major said.

Jones had eaten a late meal at JJ Fish & Chicken on Pryor Street with a friend and the friend’s boyfriend after she finished her job that Friday evening, her family told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. From there, Jones’ SUV was followed and numerous shots were fired, her sister said. Out of the three people in the SUV, only one was hit.

The SUV crashed and overturned, according to police. Jones' passengers were pulled from the wreckage and taken to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment. Jones, a mother of two children, did not survive.

Four days before the shooting, Watts was released from the Fulton County Jail, where he had spent seven months on charges of probation violation, aggravated assault and weapons violation, according to jail records.

Other arrests this week included:

  • Kevin Reeves and Rodney Gibbs were arrested in the shooting death of Marcus M. Stephens, who was killed with an assault-style rifle during a street argument, Lee said.
  • Gerald Marshall, 44, was charged in the killing of Mark Harris. Harris was shot twice in the legs on Sept. 5 and died three weeks later in the hospital, Lee said.