An Atlanta attorney says he filed an emergency order Monday morning to prevent Andrew Wordes from getting evicted from his Roswell home. But by then, it was too late.
"We knew that eviction was probably pending in the next few days, so we knew we needed to file something quickly," Attorney Ryan Strickland told the AJC. "We had no idea they were coming out that morning."
Strickland said he first met Wordes late last week, and Monday morning he filed an injunction to stop the eviction and asked for an emergency hearing. But within minutes of the documents being filed, Fulton County marshals arrived at Wordes' home to evict the 53-year-old from his foreclosed home.
Marshals arrived at Wordes' Alpine Drive home around 10:45 a.m. Monday, a spokeswoman for the department said. About two hours later, an explosion rocked the home followed by a fire, likely started by gasoline being poured throughout the house, investigators said.
Wordes apparently planned the suicide rather than lose the home. On Tuesday afternoon, the Fulton County Medical Examiner identified the body removed from the home as Wordes'.
Although the court documents filed Monday were not enough to stop the eviction, Strickland told the AJC that had Wordes contacted him earlier, there would have been more options to fight the eviction.
"Georgia has one of the fastest foreclosure processes in the country," Strickland said. "Foreclosure in Georgia doesn't require that a mortgage lender go in front of a court. It can be done in as quickly as five or six weeks."
Earlier this month, the marshal's office called Wordes and told him he would be evicted around March 12, according to the documents filed in court and obtained by the AJC. And neighbors told the AJC Wordes knew it was coming.
In recent weeks, Wordes had moved into an upstairs bedroom of the home so he could see up and down the street and be ready for officers' arrival, neighbor John Cherok told the AJC Monday afternoon. Cherok said he never imagined the extremes Wordes would apparently go to in order to avoid being evicted.
The Roswell Police Department had been informed by multiple tipsters that Wordes was capable of some type of destruction, Lt. James McGee told the AJC Tuesday afternoon. But since evictions are handled by the county, city officials could not have prevented what Wordes had evidently planned, McGee said.
"We knew that going in," McGee said. "We knew about it and we relayed that information to the Fulton County marshals."
On Monday, when Wordes, through a Channel 2 Action News reporter, asked the marshals to get off of the property, they obliged, Antonio Johnson with the Fulton County Marshal's Office said.
A graveside service for Wordes has been scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Friday at Milton Fields, 1150 Birmingham Road in Milton. Byars Funeral Home in Cumming is handling the arrangements at a discount, and the cemetery has donated the plot.
- Staff writer Patrick Fox contributed to this report.
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