Navy veteran charged in fatal DeKalb spree paid homeless man for pistol, DOJ says
A decorated U.S. Navy veteran accused in a DeKalb County shooting spree is now facing a federal firearm charge for a handgun he is said to have acquired from a homeless man, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
The gun that led to the charge was located by DeKalb police at the scene of the final of three shootings that happened the morning of April 13. Authorities said a loaded 9 mm pistol and five shell casings were on the ground near the body of a victim in a residential area.
Olaolukitan Adon Abel, 26, already faced two counts of murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime. He is accused of fatally shooting two women, one of whom was a U.S. Department of Homeland Security auditor, and injuring a third man within the span of about seven hours.
Abel spent almost four years in the Navy as an aviation structural mechanic before leaving the service in 2024.
“The DeKalb County office of the Georgia Public Defender Council represents Mr. Abel in these serious pending criminal allegations. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and the communities affected,” the council’s spokesperson, Don Plummer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The new federal charge announced by the DOJ late Friday came after officials traced the pistol’s ownership. Abel was previously convicted of crimes in California, making him a felon and preventing him from being able to possess a firearm.
Authorities said Damon Marquis Yarns, who the federal agency identified as an “Atlanta-area homeless man,” allegedly purchased the firearm from a federally licensed firearms dealer in Midtown in February. An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives learned during an interview with Yarns that Abel paid the man to purchase the gun for him, according to officials.
“Yarns stated that Abel paid for him to travel by rideshare to purchase the firearm for Abel and admitted that, when he purchased the firearm, he lied by indicating on an ATF form that he was the actual buyer of the firearm. After the purchase, Yarns allegedly gave the firearm to Abel and never possessed the firearm again,” the DOJ said in a news release.
When Abel was arrested in Troup County on the afternoon of the shootings, law enforcement said Georgia state troopers searching his vehicle found a box of 9 mm ammunition and shell casings matching the same brand of ammunition found at the crime scene in DeKalb.
On Friday, 35-year-old Yarns appeared in federal court and will be kept in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service until further proceedings. Abel, whose last name varies slightly across government records, remains in the DeKalb jail.
Two days before, Abel’s attorney filed a motion for bond, a hearing for which is scheduled April 27. The motion states Abel “poses no significant risk of fleeing” nor does he pose a “significant threat of danger.”
According to the Navy, Abel served from November 2020 to 2024. He was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois and Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. He ended his service in California, where he was at Naval Air Station Lemoore and Naval Base Coronado.
He received a total of seven awards and decorations, including the Navy “E” Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, two Sea Service Deployment Ribbons and two Overseas Service Ribbons, biographical data from the Navy revealed.
While he was still serving, Abel became a naturalized citizen in 2022, according to DHS, who confirmed he was born in the United Kingdom.
He separated from the military, for reasons the Navy did not detail, on Sept. 6, 2024. The next month, he was convicted in San Diego County, where he pleaded guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm on a police officer or firefighter and felony vandalism, according to court records. He was sentenced to probation.
In Georgia in June, he pleaded guilty in a Chatham County courtroom to four counts of sexual battery. He was subsequently sentenced to probation, banned from entering Savannah for four years and ordered to obtain a psychosexual social evaluation, documents show.
The two women Abel is accused of killing have been identified as 40-year-old Lauren Bullis and 31-year-old Prianna Weathers. DeKalb police said Weathers was the first victim, fatally shot at a Checkers around 12:50 a.m. on April 13, and Bullis was his last, shot and stabbed while walking her dog on a residential street around 6:50 a.m. Bullis was the DHS employee, according to the agency.
A homeless man sleeping in front of a Kroger in Brookhaven was shot around 2 a.m. Police said Friday morning he remained in critical condition.
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