Cops: Estranged boyfriend threatened to kill postal worker a week before murder

Tyrika Terrell (left), Quantez D’Ante Tyre

Tyrika Terrell (left), Quantez D’Ante Tyre

Tyrika Terrell had reason to fear Quantez D’Ante Tyre.

The estranged boyfriend had followed her to her job and just last week threatened to kill her, Terrell told 911 operators.

On Monday, police say he delivered on that threat.

Tyre, 22, was arrested at a relative’s Decatur home Friday afternoon following a two-hour standoff, DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Cynthia Williams said. He had self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Authorities had been searching for Tyre for four days after Terrell, a United States Postal Service employee, was shot and killed outside her job.

Terrell, 22, was just ending her shift Monday night at the Wesley Chapel Road USPS when DeKalb police say Tyre walked up to her and shot her in the head multiple times, The Atlanta Journal Constitution previously reported.

About noon Friday, DeKalb officials surrounded a Snapfinger Road home in Decatur, where Tyre was hiding, Williams said. Others were inside the home at the time.

Williams said once the others left Tyre by himself inside the home, he went to an upstairs room with a weapon as deputies attempted to negotiate his surrender.

Shortly after, Williams said, Tyre set a fire inside the home and shots were fired.

“When the suspect came out of the house, SWAT deputies surrounded and engaged him,” Williams said.

Tyre was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he is in custody of the sheriff’s office. He will be taken to the DeKalb jail once he is treated and released.

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Witnesses said Tyre had stalked Terrell in the days before she was shot and killed. The two share a 6-month-old daughter, which Terrell’s mother, Eugenia Terrell-Grant, said she now has to raise.

News of the shooting shocked Terrell-Grant, who said she had spoken to Tyre the night of the shooting.

This was not the first time Tyre was accused of abusing a former girlfriend.

A 2016 Atlanta police report alleged he beat an ex-girlfriend in her apartment building. The two had ended their relationship two weeks before the attack.

Tyre pleaded guilty to a charge of battery of substantial physical harm and was sentenced to 12 months of probation and domestic violence counseling.

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