DeKalb double shooting: Motel residents say gunfire common

Gunfire and violence are common occurrences at the DeKalb County extended-stay motel where one man was shot dead and a second was wounded early Thursday, according to one resident.

Residents of the Friendship Inn on Glenwood Road were in the parking lot before daybreak, crying and trying to find out what happened to their neighbors in room 125 -- known to them only as  "J.B" and "Preacher Man."

"I was asleep. There were some gunshots heard. I didn’t know what was going on," said Brittney Williams. "They done kicked his door in and killed him [J.B.]"

"Preacher Man" was shot in the head and taken to an area hospital; his condition was not known. The man who died was identified by a former girlfriend and the mother of his 2-year-old daughter as Casey Durham, 25.

Asia Brown, 25, who identified herself as Durham's former girlfriend and the mother of his 2-year-old daughter, said J.B. had a 5-year-old child and a third baby on the way. Brown said it will be hard to tell their daughter that her daddy is gone.

"I don’t know how I'm going to do that. She loves her father," Brown said.

Brown suspects Durham and the other man were killed in a robbery gone wrong.

"He didn't have to be robbed," Brown told reporters in the motel parking lot. "If you ... needed it, he would give it to you. If it came time to defend himself he would. But he wasn't no thug."

Williams, the neighbor at the motel,  suspects the shooting was over money.

"He had a lot of money so you never know," said Williams, who has lived at Friendship Inn for three years.

She told reporters there had been two other people shot and killed at the motel just outside Interstate 285 just weeks ago.

DeKalb police were called shortly after 4 a.m., when the shots were fired, according to spokeswoman Mekka Parish.