A reward of up to $15,000 is being offered to anyone with information regarding a triple homicide at a gun range in western Georgia.
Three people — the business owner, his wife, and their grandson — were shot and killed between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. local time on Friday at the Lock Stock & Barrel Shooting Range in Grantville,according to a statementfrom Grantville police shared early Saturday morning on the department’s Facebook page.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms’s Atlanta Division, which was called in to assist “due to the amount of weapons taken,” stated that an unknown number of individuals “brutally murdered” the family members “in an apparent armed robberyin a reward notice shared Saturday.
Around 40 guns and the shop’s surveillance camera DVR were taken from the scene, per Grantville police’s statement.
Police have identified the victims as 75-year-old Thomas Hawk, Evelyn Hawk, and their 17-year-old grandson, Luke Hawk, according to ABC News.
Whitlock said Hawk’s son was the person to discover the scene when he arrived at his parents' business around 8 p.m. on Friday.
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Whitlock told reporters that he was last at the facility on Tuesday and that officers visited the facility “at least once or twice a week,” perWCJL News.
“It’s really hard because we don’t have stuff like this here in Grantville,” the police chief explained. “This is a nice, quiet little town.”
“Let’s keep Richard Hawk and family in our prayers,” Grantville police said in Saturday’s statement.
Coweta County Sheriff Lenn Wood, who also had a close relationship with the Hawk family, mourned the loss of his friends and offered his condolences to their familyin an emotional messageshared Saturday on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.
ATF Atlanta special agent in charge Benjamin P. Gibbons said in the reward notice that law enforcement “will work tirelessly to bring the killer(s) to justice.”
“The brutality of these senseless murders along with the fact that these killers have acquired additional firearms make solving this case a top priority,” Gibbons noted.
Additionally, anyone with any information regarding the shooting is asked to contact ATF at 1-800-ATF-TIPS, emailATFtips@atf.gov, or through its website atwww.atf.org/contact/atf-tips. Tips can also be submitted through the GBI Tip Line at 1-800-597-TIPS and via the ReportIt app and its corresponding website.
source: people.com
