The Lawrenceville man charged with killing his girlfriend and leaving her body in a vacant Gwinnett Place Mall restaurant is set to face a preliminary hearing Thursday.
Emmett Davis, Jr., is scheduled for the 1:30 p.m. hearing in magistrate court at the Gwinnett County Detention Center. He has been held without bond at the jail since June 14, when he was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and felony murder.
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Silling Man, 19, went missing from her uncle’s Lawrenceville home in October 2017 and was found dead in a vacant Subway in the Gwinnett Place Mall food court on December 21, 2017. She had been dead for at least two weeks, according to Gwinnett County police.
Police believe Man was living with Davis in hotels near the mall between her disappearance and her death.
Davis asphyxiated Man, warrants allege. Man’s chest was “restricted to the point where she couldn’t breathe, as if someone sat on her,” said Sgt. Jake Smith, a Gwinnett County Police Department spokesman.
Davis was interviewed by police multiple times soon after Man’s body was found, but there was not initially enough evidence to charge him with a crime, Smith said. Police were able to obtain warrants for Davis’ arrest once they received cell phone records and lab tests ruled out drugs and disease as potential causes of death.
The Thursday hearing’s primary purpose is to establish probable cause for the case to move forward. The hearing will not address the issue of bond; that will be taken up by Gwinnett County Superior Court at a later date.
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