Atlanta police are looking for witnesses to a nine-year-old murder, as a mother vows to keep what’s left of the victim close until the gets answers.
“I made a promise to him to keep his remains until I got his murder solved,” Quandra Phillips, Ronald Grant Jr.’s mother, told Channel 2 Action News.
Grant was shot and killed on Sept. 26, 2002, in the parking lot of the Delmar Villa apartment complex.
Police say Grant, then 27, had gone to the southwest Atlanta apartment community to collect money from someone.
“Mr. Grant was upset with several individuals over money being stolen from him or he was conned out of,” homicide Det. Kevin Otts said. “He was meeting the people here, supposedly to try to get his money back.”
But the meeting led to fatal gunfire, Otts said.
“There was some sort of altercation where he was shot in the back and killed,” Otts said.
Witnesses at the time described a black man in his late 20s or early 30s, average build, possibly with gold teeth and around 5-feet-6-inches tall running from the scene with a gun in his hand immediately after the shots were fired.
“We believe the person that he was meeting with … that he was supposed to get his money back from, is the person that shot him,” Otts said.
Accounts of what happened soon dried up, however, leaving police looking for a break in the case.
“Two of the witnesses recanted since then,” Otts said. “They were threatened.”
Police say there was another witness they haven’t been able to locate.
Now Grant’s family hopes that someone will speak up after all this time to tell what they saw.
“I don’t see myself going through this struggle the rest of my life,” Phillips said. “But the problem is that no one has come forward.”
And police are looking to help Phillips find some peace.
“The family felt they were close to getting some closure, and all of a sudden it just falls through,” Otts said. “We’re hoping somebody that had a sense of loyalty to him back then – a close friend or possibly and ex-girlfriend – that no longer feels that sense of loyalty and wants to come forward and do the right thing.”
Anyone with information on what happened in this case is asked to call the Atlanta Crime Stoppers tip line at 404-577-8477. Information leading to an arrest or prosecution could result in a reward.
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