Sariah Wilcoxson, 16, wanted to get away from the violence in her DeKalb County neighborhood. And Deandre Seabrooks was someone the teenager knew to avoid, her uncle said Thursday.
But Wilcoxson and Seabrooks, 29, had a conversation inside a Shell gas station on Jan. 11, and the two were seen on surveillance footage, Danny Wilcoxson said. Minutes later, Seabrooks allegedly shot and killed the teenager as she stood on the sidewalk, according to her family and police.
“Right now there’s no logical, intellectual, intelligent answer for what he did,” Wilcoxson’s uncle said Thursday night. “I don’t know if he threatened her. We just don’t know the nature of that conversation.”
As family and friends attended the funeral for Wilcoxson on Thursday, police arrested Seabrooks and charged him with murder, Maj. S.R. Fore with DeKalb County police said.
Wilcoxson, a former McNair High School student, had planned to enter a military school in Savannah this month. On the night of Jan. 11, a Monday, she walked a friend to a MARTA bus stop on Flat Shoals Road and then went into the convenience store for candy and chips, her family said.
Wilcoxson lived nearby in the Highlands of East Atlanta Apartments. Seabrooks no longer lived in the complex, but was known to still frequent the area.
“He was known as a person to be avoided by all means,” Danny Wilcoxson said. “He was nobody that Sariah would have socialized with on a regular basis.”
As she walked home, Wilcoxson was shot multiple times, according to police. Her body was found on the sidewalk, just steps away from her home. Her family believes tips from witnesses led police to Seabrooks.
“My best guess is whatever his beef was, it was not with Sariah,” the girl’s uncle said. “Sariah was caught in the crossfire. That baby was sacrificed. Nothing on this earth would have justified you taking her life in the manner in which you did.”
Seabrooks’ criminal record includes being booked into the DeKalb jail 14 times since 2004. He is also a convicted felon who has been sent to state prisons three times, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Most recently, Seabrooks was released from prison in June 2015. He had previously been convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, criminal damage and obstruction, prison records showed.
During the funeral Thursday for Wilcoxson at The Covenant Church in Decatur, her family was told Seabrooks was again in custody.
“It has really torn into the fabric of our family,” Danny Wilcoxson said. “But at the same time, we heal. We come together.”
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