A 24-year-old father of two was killed during a carjacking Monday night by three suspects in East Point, who then set the stolen car on fire shortly afterward, authorities said.
Two men were in a car in the parking lot of an East Point apartment complex on Fox Hunt Lane, Channel 2 reported.
Terrick Matthews was asleep in the passenger seat, but then the sound of three armed suspects trying to break into the vehicle woke him up, East Point police spokeswoman Ebony Johnson told the news station.
Johnson said that even though Matthews was trying to cooperate with the suspects, one gunshot was fired, hitting him in the neck and killing him.
“It wasn’t necessary for them to take his life,” Johnson told Channel 2. “They were in compliance. They were getting out of the vehicle at that point.”
The suspects then drove the victim’s stolen car to a nearby Exxon gas station on Cleveland Avenue in southwest Atlanta, the news station reported. Surveillance video obtained by Channel 2 shows one of the suspects pay for gas and then found an empty soda bottle in a nearby trash can.
Johnson said the suspect filled the bottle with gas and then set the car ablaze. No one was injured as a result of the fire.
In addition to the three suspects, police want to speak to two more people seen on the gas station’s surveillance video about the incident, Channel 2 reported.
Anyone with information is asked to contact CrimeStoppers at 404-577-8477.
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