Cops capture suspect in killing that triggered 2 others

A convicted felon who allegedly killed a man, starting a violent sequence of events that led to the shooting deaths of two others outside a DeKalb County church, was captured Monday, authorities said.

Marcus D. Ventress was taken into custody in Columbus by the DeKalb Sheriff's Office Fugitive Squad and the U.S. Marshals Task Force, DeKalb Sheriff's Sgt. Adrion Bell said.

Agents in the Southeast Regional Task Force in Atlanta received a tip that Ventress was staying with a girlfriend in Columbus, said John Edgar, a task force supervisor. They followed leads for weeks before Monday's arrest, Edgar said.

"He was elusive," Edgar said.

Officers watched the residence until they saw Ventress go inside. They arrested him without incident Monday night and he was being held in the DeKalb County Jail.

The 28-year-old Ventress is charged in the May 27 killing of Ryan Devon Guider, whose funeral June 7 was the scene of a shooting in which two people died.

As 500 mourners left the World Church on North Hairston Road, one of Guider's friends, 19-year-old Carlos Henderson Jr., was ambushed, authorities said. Henderson got away from his attackers, retrieved a gun from his car and opened fire.

Delmetrius Heard, 28, returned fire, and both he and Henderson were killed, authorities said. A 12-year-old girl and another man were wounded by stray shots.

Authorities have said Ventress shot Guider as retaliation. Law enforcement sources told investigators that Guider "burglarized the home of Ventress, stealing jewelry, cash and drugs and punching Ventress' mother," Bell said.

Police said Ventress also is accused of shooting into an apartment in the 5800 block of Treecrest Parkway, thinking Guider lived there.

Ventress's criminal history includes multiple arrests between 2002 and 2009 in Elkhart County, Ind., about 125 miles southeast of Chicago, for charges that included attempted murder, drug possession, gambling and resisting arrest, according to Indiana jail records.

He spent six years in prison on drug charges and was on parole and probation at the time of the DeKalb shooting, Bell said.