'Victim' in car trunk now murder suspect


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/29/08

After two men were shot to death last week, Atlanta police didn't look far to find their murder suspect.

He turned out to be the "victim." The man apparently stuffed himself in the trunk of a car to make it look like he was a victim in the whole ordeal.

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   • Atlanta and Fulton County news

Early on in the case, detectives were suspicious of 33-year-old Calvin Louie, who lived in a home on East Confederate Avenue in southeast Atlanta where two men were fatally shot May 20 during a drug deal gone bad, said Lt. Keith Meadows, commander of the department's homicide unit.

Louie was found in the car about two miles from his rental house, which played host to a botched drug deal that led to the deaths of Walsteen Butts, 33, and Raymond Johnson, 30.

But his story unraveled after detectives brought him back to the homicide unit, when his story didn't match up with physical evidence linked to the double murder, Meadows said.

Now he's been charged with two counts of felony murder, and Atlanta police are looking for two other men who they believe were involved in the slayings.

Louie admitted to police that he was the middle man in a drug deal involving four other men. He was getting drugs from Butts and Johnson, and was supposed to pass it along to two other unidentified men, Meadows said.

But something went wrong, and Butts and Johnson were fatally shot in the home's living room, Meadows said. One died in the house; the other jumped through a window but collapsed and died behind a church next door.

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