The body of a man found in Ward Lake on Wednesday belongs to a shooting suspect, DeKalb County police said Thursday.
Initially, investigators thought the man found in the lake had died after he was involved in a car crash, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
However, police now believe that dead man, who has been identified as Joshua Allen, shot the driver of a Ford F-150, causing it to crash July 5 near the intersection of Ward Lake and Bouldercrest roads in DeKalb County, according to a police report obtained Thursday.
In that report, driver John Hale told an officer that he picked up a man, whose name he did not know, at a Citgo in Henry County on July 5.
That passenger, now believed to be Allen, pointed a gun at Hale during the drive.
Hale told Allen he didn’t have to threaten him with a gun, but Allen said, “Yeah, I think I do,” according to the report.
At that point, the two men struggled and the gun went off, hitting Hale in the top of his head, the report states.
Allen allegedly said, “I’m just doing this for my family,” officers wrote in the report.
The F-150 overturned in the embankment on Ward Lake Road and witnesses watched the two men continue to fight over the gun, police said.
Hale was taken to a hospital and the suspect ran off, police said.
On Thursday, an officer added the note, “Investigation has revealed that the suspect, Joshua Allen, is the victim that was pulled from Ward Lake.”
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