Within hours of running ballistic evidence through a national database, Oconee County Sheriff’s Office investigators got crucial information that helped them make an arrest in the fatal shooting of a gas station clerk last year.
Elijah James Wood was shot to death in March 2021 while working at a RaceTrac on Hog Mountain Road outside of Watkinsville. Former University of Georgia football player Ahkil Nasir Crumpton, 24, was arrested Wednesday in Philadelphia, where he is from, and charged with killing the 23-year-old.
At a news conference Thursday, Oconee Sheriff James Hale said investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a botched robbery but didn’t offer additional details, noting the pending prosecution. And while they can’t say with certainty that Crumpton didn’t have accomplices, Hale said they are confident he acted alone.
Police had a list of persons of interest, “a stack of folders that has 51 names in it,” but Crumpton wasn’t on law enforcement’s radar until February when ballistic evidence connected the RaceTrac incident to a shooting in Philadelphia, Hale said.
The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, helps law enforcement members quickly match — sometimes within hours — particular shell casings to specific guns, similar to the way police track fingerprints.
To get a match, technicians feed single shell casings into a machine that takes 3D images and uploads them to the network. If a match is found, investigators are notified, and specialists then have to manually confirm the match before it’s considered official.
With more than 4.5 million pieces of evidence, the database has helped investigators across the country learn in which crimes a single gun was used, often building sprawling spiderwebs of interconnected shootings.
“NIBIN proved to be a valuable tool in helping us solve this case, and much like the TV show ‘Forensic Files,’ it’s really the technology behind the science that helped us get this case forward,” said Alicia Jones, assistant special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Atlanta field office.
Within eight hours of submitting ballistic evidence, Oconee investigators got a match.
“We were ecstatic,” Hale said. “Mountains were moved within hours, I will tell you that.”
“It was emotional,” he said of the call to Wood’s family to let them know they got the match, his voice cracking with emotion. “That’s the best I can say about it right now and keep myself together.”
Sheriff’s office investigators worked tirelessly on the case, he said.
“It was a 24/7 constant grind,” he added. “We went home just enough to sleep. If you can think of the story of Forrest Gump — talks about running coast to coast. He slept when he needed to sleep, you know, he did what he needed to do when he needed to do it. But we were working on this case tirelessly every day for almost 364 days.”
Crumpton had no criminal history prior to the March 19, 2021, RaceTrac shooting, Hale said. He played football for UGA in 2017 and 2018 and was a student until 2021 but did not graduate.
“I don’t know if there’s a fall from grace from that,” Hale said. “But you know, adults make adult decisions. And, you know, at some point you have to take personal responsibility for the things you do and not blame it on anybody else.”
The UGA Athletic Association said in a statement Wednesday that they were “stunned to learn that the suspect in this horrific crime is a former UGA student-athlete. We offer our heartfelt sympathy to Elijah Wood’s family.”
Crumpton remains in Philadelphia, where he faces a firearms violation. Philadelphia police did not respond to a request for additional details about that case, but the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that shell casings found at the scene of a July 17 homicide in that city matched those found at the RaceTrac.
In the Philadelphia case, investigators found two guns at the scene, the newspaper reported. The victim had been shot multiple times and died shortly after. Crumpton has not been charged with murder in that case.
He will face a murder charge in Oconee County when he is extradited.
The night of the shooting, Wood was working alone on the graveyard shift when a customer found him dead behind the checkout counter about 2 a.m. and called authorities. Responding deputies administered CPR but were unable to revive him.
Credit: Oconee County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Oconee County Sheriff's Office
Surveillance footage released by police the day after the shooting showed the suspect, dressed in all black with a mask that exposed only his eyes and nose, walking with a peculiar gait. He then ran back and forth throughout the store before eventually leaving the scene.
“It is my heartfelt honest plea to the county, to the family, to the people of this agency, to understand that we are a family here in Oconee County,” Hale said. “Anytime we lose any one of our people here, it hits us hard.”
While an arrest has been made, police are still investigating the case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office at 706-769-3945.
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