Cold-blooded murders in downtown Athens described
- Classic City News
- 2 minutes ago
- 1 min read
By Joe Johnson
Recently filed court documents describe the cold-blooded behavior of a man accused of murdering two people in downtown Athens three months ago.
According to a homicide detective’s sworn affidavit, early in the morning of March 14th Mark Anthony Desousa walked up to Dylan Bentley in a aparking lot off North Jackson Street nd shot him in the back of his head. The bullet passed through the victim and struck Christopher Skinner in the eye.
DeSousa then shot a third victim, Clayton Adams, and continued shooting as Adams tried to crawl beneath a vehicle.
Bentley and Adams were both killed and Skinner was critically injured and survived, though doctors were unable to save his eye.
The detective based his reconstruction of events from witness interviews and what saw when reviewing surveillance footage of the incident.
The affidavit was in support of warrants to search for evidence in the social media accounts of the killer and his victims.
In it he states that Desousa was friends with Skinner, who called him prior to the shootings saying that he was being attacked.
“Your affiant believes Desousa wrongly thought (Skinner) was currently fighting the victims and shot the victims because of the fight,” the detective stated.
Desousa, a 22-year-old resident of Jefferson, was indicted last month on charged two counts each of malice and felony murder, and three counts each of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime,
He is being detained without bail pending trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court.