Police seek teenager in connection with fatal shooting at house party

Dexter Deshawn Covington is a person of interest in a homicide investigation. (Credit: Henry County Police Department)

Dexter Deshawn Covington is a person of interest in a homicide investigation. (Credit: Henry County Police Department)

Henry County police want to talk to a teenager they call a person of interest in a shooting that left a Stockbridge High School senior dead.

Police said Dexter Covington was in the McDonough area where 17-year-old Jesse Thomas was shot at a house party Saturday morning, Henry County police said in a news release.

Covington, 19, was last seen driving an all black Chevrolet Camaro with the Georgia license plate RCA2611.

About 1:40 a.m., officers responded to a house in the 1000 block of Maria Drive outside McDonough, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

Jesse Thomas (Credit: Channel 2 Action News)

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Officers found blood on the door, but no one was in the house.

Soon after, Thomas arrived at Piedmont Henry Hospital with a serious gunshot wound, and he later died, police said.

Jamal Sullivan, Thomas’s father, told Channel 2 Action News that the last thing he told his son was “I love you.”

Thomas was about a month away from graduation and Sullivan was shocked that his son was killed after a fight at a party.

"From what I heard it died down and escalated back up really quick,” Sullivan told Channel 2. “No one knows what happened. Punches were thrown and the guy fired … He was just shot.”

Anyone who sees Covington is urged to call Detective Rotella with the Henry County Police Department at 770-288-8269.

The school district says counselors will be available for students when they go back to Stockbridge High School Monday morning.