The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday identified a 17-year-old girl killed in a weekend murder-suicide in Elberton.
About 6:40 p.m. Saturday, Alyric Fouch died after being shot by her mother’s boyfriend in a domestic dispute, GBI spokesman Scott Dutton said. While the agency has not released the name of the gunman, who later turned the gun on himself, Elberton police Chief Mark Welsh identified him as 49-year-old Raphael Diaz de Leon.
Welsh said the incident started with an argument about Diaz de Leon’s drinking.
“Officers quickly learned from witnesses that the deceased male had begun shooting at his girlfriend, who lived at the residence,” Dutton said hours after the incident.
When Diaz de Leon began shooting, the girlfriend, identified by police as Rhonda Cureton, flagged down a vehicle and jumped into the passenger seat, officials said.
Diaz de Leon fired at the vehicle, striking Cureton and the vehicle’s driver. They were treated at nearby medical facilities and released.
Fouch’s body was found in the roadway, and Diaz de Leon’s body was found in the front yard of the residence. The shooting occurred on Reese Street in Elberton, about 110 miles northeast of Atlanta.
—Information from The Associated Press was used in this article.
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