From left: Kentavious White killed fellow McDonald’s employee Amia Smith, his grandmother Hilda Marshall and his mother Susie Arnold, bottom, in Moultrie, Georgia, before taking his own life, authorities said. (Screenshots from southwestern Georgia NBC/ABC affiliate WALB)
A 26-year-old man shot and killed his mother and grandmother at their homes, then killed a manager at a McDonald’s where he worked before taking his own life at the restaurant on Thursday in Georgia, authorities said.
Kentavious White was identified as the gunman in the Thursday morning shooting spree that shocked the community of less than 15,000 people.
“A killing is pretty rare in our neck of the woods. It’s surprising,” Chas Cannon, Colquitt County’s government administrator told the Associated Press.
Authorities said it went down at three separate crime scenes early Thursday. Authorities got a report of a man and woman found dead at a McDonald’s restaurant in Moultrie, Georgia, about 200 miles south of Atlanta.
McDonald’s surveillance footage shows White arriving at the restaurant, getting his manager to come to the door, and shooting her, before he steps inside and shoots himself dead, authorities said.
The manager was identified as Amia Smith, 41.
Smith’s cousin Felicia McGough called it a senseless act, according to WALB-TV.
“I don’t know what caused him to do that,” she told the station.
Devan Straggis, Smith’s co-worker, told the station she was kind-hearted and sweet.
“She always had a positive attitude,” he told the station.
George Suarez, the owner and operator of the Moultrie branch of McDonald’s, which reopened Friday with purple ribbons tied to doors and employees wearing purple to honor Smith, issued a statement, saying, “We are devastated by the loss of our beloved restaurant manager, and our hearts go out to all the victims of this senseless act of violence.”
Colquitt County Coroner C. Verlyn Brock told the AP that White shot his mother, Susie Arnold, 50, and grandmother, Hilda Marshall, 74, in their adjoining homes less than 2 miles from the McDonald’s. Arnold died at a hospital. Marshall was found dead at her home, the AP reported.
Tanner Strickland paid tribute to Arnold and Marshall, who worked at a local assisted living home.
“Hilda would have been at work today. Both of them are two of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of being around,” Tanner Strickland, one of their co-workers, said.
The Moultrie Observer, quoting police investigator Nathan Cato, reported that White had been in a gunfight with a man in his neighborhood on Tuesday during his lunch break. No one was hit.
The AP reported that Rahiem Rashad Kinsey, 30, of Moultrie, a former McDonald’s employee, shot at White and was charged with aggravated assault and possessing a gun while committing a crime. He remained in jail on Friday in Moultrie. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer, the AP reported.
Moultrie Police Chief Sean Ladson told WALB that that shooting “does not correlate to the shootings that happened on Thursday.”