ATLANTA — The woman accused in a shooting earlier this year that killed two people, seriously injured a third and sent Midtown Atlanta into a panic has now been formally indicted.
The indictment against Raissa Kengne includes a slew of charges, including two counts of felony murder, two counts of murder, five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, attempted burglary and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
The August Midtown shooting began at an apartment building where Kengne allegedly shot and killed 60-year-old Michael Shinners and wounded Mike Horne, then moved to an office building down the road where she allegedly shot and killed 41-year-old Wesley Freeman.
Kengne then evaded capture for several hours after taking a taxi to the airport, where she was ultimately arrested, authorities said.
The shootings were believed to be targeted.
Documents showed two of the victims were among dozens named in a job discrimination lawsuit filed by Kengne, one of two lawsuits she was a part of, against the building management of the 1280 West condominium. In a federal civil suit, she claimed to be a whistleblower and the company and the managers involved violated her civil rights and financial regulations.
Shinners worked at Beacon Management, which manages the condo building where Kengne lived and where the shooting began. Documents reviewed by 11Alive showed she was angry both with the property management company and BDO, where she had worked in a unit directed by Freeman.
Kengne alleged in her legal filings both fraud at BDO and that her apartment had been broken into - which she accused the property management company of perpetrating from the inside, in order to steal "evidence" out of her safe related to the lawsuits.
Horne, who was shot in the chest, left the hospital to begin rehab in September, about a month after the shooting. His daughter Alison Page told 11Alive it was a "very emotional" moment that the family wasn't sure they'd get to see.
The wife of Freeman, Alicia Freeman, told 11Alive she knew of Kengne because of ongoing issues at her husband's work. She described how she realized when she got the call from Grady that "immediately when I heard he was shot I knew who did it."
"I knew all the stuff that was going on," she said. "At first I was like, 'wait how? Did he get mugged in the parking lot or something?' And I said, 'no, oh God no, no. It couldn't be her, it couldn't be her' - and it was her."
"You know my husband, he would never hurt anyone, not anyone or anything," Alicia Freeman added. "It just kills me somebody can just walk in, and him just be sitting there in his office, and just shoot him."
The burglary charge stems from Kengne's taxi ride. Driver Giles Patrick Mandio told 11Alive that Kengne told him to take her to a home in the Ansley Park neighborhood in Atlanta. 11Alive later learned the owner of that home was named in one of her lawsuits.
According to the indictment, she is accused of looking to harm the homeowner in that instance by "walking to the back yard at said location and approaching the rear door, with the intent to enter and remain in the aforesaid dwelling house without authority and with the intent to commit the felony crime of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon therein."
The homeowner's law firm Finch McCranie issued a statement back in August explaining the firm had represented Kengne for about seven weeks to look into her whistleblower lawsuit.
"We evaluated the case at no charge to her. We then declined to pursue the claim and ended our representation of her," the statement said in part. "In one complaint she alleged, without any supporting evidence, that our firm somehow disclosed her confidential information to BDO and had a conflict of interest. There was never any merit to these allegations, as there was no such disclosure of her information and no conflict of interest."
The false imprisonment charge and two of the aggravated assault charges also appear to relate to one other employee at the property management office who was not shot, but whom Kengne allegedly shot at.