Sprawled out on the couch in a South DeKalb County home, 46-year-old Antimothy Davis lay covered in a blanket, wearing a hospital ID bracelet.
He was still recovering from a gunshot, which had been fired into his house mysteriously one night in 2016 and struck him in the buttocks. But in a moment, he’d be shot again, twice. This time he would die.
It was after 2 a.m. on Nov. 18 and two men came knocking at the door asking to buy $50 worth of crack, according to Detective D. McBride, who testified on the case Tuesday morning.
Another man at the house on Horse Shoe Drive, Joe Strickland, answered the door as Davis stayed on the couch near the door.
The men were strangers to Davis and Strickland. And their request was strange, McBride said, not because they wanted crack, but because they wanted a lot of crack.
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Strickland asked the men who’d sent them. They said something about a woman with a last name that included “wood.”
Strickland told them to have this woman come back to the house with them.
It isn’t clear why, but Strickland then got distracted and didn’t realize one of the men had a gun pointed at his head, the detective said.
“Joe!” Davis called out.
The man fired two shots, but neither struck Strickland. They hit Davis, one bullet entering his left arm, the other his chest.
He died at the scene. The detective gave no indication that the 2016 shooting and the November shooting were linked.
In the homicide, police filed murder charges against Patrick Croskey of Ellenwood and Kryshlar Maxwell of Stone Mountain, both 26.
The men were found down the road after the shooting, their car wrecked.
Maxwell was trapped in the car. Croskey was bleeding profusely from a gunshot to the leg, though it isn’t clear who fired the shot. He told police he only fired into the house because someone inside shot first, the detective said.
In court Tuesday, Maxwell’s arm was still in a sling. He and Croskey sat stoically listening as the detective detailed the case against them.
They showed no reaction as Judge Curtis Miller said he found enough probable cause for the charges to continue.
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