SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — The mother of a South Fulton County teen is devastated after her 16-year-old son was shot and killed, just hours after the end of the Memorial Day weekend.
City of South Fulton Police told 11Alive the shooting happened just before 1 a.m. May 29 at a home in the 2900 block of Two Lakes Circle.
When officers arrived they found two teens, 16-year-old Grant Antonio Payton and 19-year-old Tyree Johnson, shot to death, and a 15-year-old boy suffering from a gunshot wound to his face. He survived.
Neighbors told 11Alive Payton was shot by a flying bullet that went through the home, while Johnson was found shot inside a car parked outside the home.
11Alive spoke with Payton's mother, Donese Gordon, Monday afternoon. She said her son was excited, because he had just gotten a job at a Chick-fil-A.
Gordon said her son and Johnson were at the home visiting a childhood friend whom Grant had known since he was six years old. She said they had just gotten back from making a run to McDonalds for food, when the shooting happened.
PHOTOS | 16-year-old Grant Payton
Photos: 16-year-old Grant Payton
Monday afternoon, 11Alive spoke to the woman who owned the home, who was distraught over the shooting. She said the gunfire woke her up in the middle of the night. She found Payton dead in her living room.
"I watched my baby friend die in my f****** living room floor," the woman, who didn't want to be identified, shouted out in frustration.
The woman told 11Alive whoever shot the three teens ran away before she saw them.
Outside her home, nearly two dozen evidence markers mapped the scene of the crime – shell casings from the gunfire. At least four vehicles and a nearby house were riddled with bullets.
Meanwhile, the woman's son, who watched his friends suffer and and die from gunfire, is fighting along with his family and neighbors to stay alive another day.
"His heart is hurt forever," she said.
The shooting has left neighbors feeling defeated and fed up with crime. They say violent crime and criminals have won in their neighborhood.
"It was just senseless! It was senseless. It was senseless," one resident exclaimed in frustration. "They was kids, you know what I'm saying? They was kids."
City of South Fulton Police detectives are not saying anything yet about suspects or a motive, but neighbors 11Alive spoke to had plenty to say about what they call an epidemic of violent crimes right at their doorsteps.
“It’s dangerous. We have to move," Rachel Huiel said
Huiel has four children and one grandchild, but she said she's moving with them to her mother's immediately and not coming back.
“You can’t sleep. It’s always killing over here, fighting, breaking in," she explained. "I’m scared, and I have a grand-baby at home, and I’m just scared.”
11Alive has requested crime records for the neighborhood from the City of South Fulton, but they were not immediately available.
