Woman accused of murdering 6-year-old in 1998 also killed man when she was a teen

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A woman accused of murdering her 6-year-old son more than 20 years ago in DeKalb County also shot and killed a man in Charlotte as a teenager, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Teresa Black, who used to go by Teresa Walker, was 16 years old when she shot and killed a man in 1994, according to the Observer.

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The local newspaper said that during a fight between a couple Black knew at a boarding house in Charlotte, Black fired a warning shot into the air.

The bullet hit 40 year-old Jimmy Lee Samuels in the back, killing him.

Black is the same woman who was recently arrested in the death of her son, William Dashawn Hamilton, whose body was found near a Decatur cemetery in 1999.

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Hamilton would have been nearly two years old when Black killed Hamilton. He was born in 1992, when Black had just turned 15.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Black pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Samuels’ death. She went to prison and served for more than a year.

A woman who helped identify Hamilton decades after his death said that when Black was released from prison, she lived in Charlotte. The friend, identified only as Ava, said she help take car of the child until his mother moved to DeKalb County in 1998.

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When Black came back to Charlotte, Ava said she didn’t have the child with her and had inconsistent explanations about where he was.

In 2020, after years of searching for Hamilton, Ava recognized him through drawings released by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She called investigators, who were able to identify the boy through DNA.

Black was taken into custody on June 29 in Phoenix and is expected to face charges of murder, aggravated assault and concealing the death of another when she is extradited back to DeKalb County.

Man accused of kidnapping woman, shooting her multiple times faces judge Investigators said Kevin Barge turned himself into Clayton County Sheriff's Office overnight.

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