Family of young girl who died at Douglasville gas station had just moved to area, neighbors say

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — Deputies are working to unravel exactly how a child was shot and ended up dying at a Douglasville gas station over the weekend.

Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was in Douglas County, where the girl was apparently shot at a home on Vicki Lane on Saturday. For some reason, the child’s family left the house and stopped at the Marathon gas station on Stewart Mill Road about three blocks away.

Witnesses saw two women pull the child out of the car in a panic.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

The child, who’s name and identity have not been released, died at the gas station as distraught family members looked on, witness Jaquan Straughn said.

“Everybody at the gas station was emotional,” Straughn said. “It was a very emotional scene.”

Straughn said he thinks the family was on the way to the hospital, but stopped when they realized the girl was not breathing. Straughn said he could tell the girl was shot, and that a child he assumed was her brother was begging her to stay alive.

TRENDING STORIES:

• 2 bodies found in Georgia pond just miles from where person was killed in building fire
• Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey expected to step down: reports
• Missing Jonesboro man found safe after Thanksgiving date, family says

“He was panicking. He was crying,” Straughn said. “He was yelling, saying, ‘Don’t die! Don’t die!’ and then he was yelling that she was shot, so the police officer and the women, they were holding her up, just kind of slapping her in the face, telling her, ‘Stay here! Stay here!”

On Monday, there was still a bullet hole in a window of the home on Vicki Lane, where a neighbor said the shooting happened. The neighbor said deputies were collecting evidence from the house until 5 a.m. Sunday morning and that deputies towed the car, calling it evidence.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

Neighbors said the family moved to the area from out of state about three or four months ago.

Many people in the Douglasville community want to know if the shooting was an accident, but Douglas County deputies were not ready to answer that question yet.

Investigators would not give Fernandes any more details on the case.

©2021 Cox Media Group