A 20-year-old college student is dead and his friend is charged with murder in his death that reportedly started with an argument about the Bible.
Jacquell Smith was shot twice in the head Sunday at a home on Azalea Drive in Dublin. Charged in the shooting is Raekwon Pauldo, 21.
Jickie Rozier raised 20-year-old Jacquell Smith since he was three years old, and on Sunday she said goodbye to him.
"Grandmama loves you, baby.You can't lay there, you got to get up. I said, 'Please God, let him get up,'" said Rozier.
His grandmother said that Smith called her just twenty minutes before he was shot asking for her to pick him up so that he can head back to school in Swainsboro.
"He said, 'Come get me! Come get me because I'm ready to go back to school,'" said Rozier.
She says that when she went to the hospital and finally heard the news that Smith didn't make it, her family was filled with sorrow.
"They was crying screaming and hollering, 'Jacquell, come back, Jacquell, come back,'" said Rozier. "It was heartbreaking. I thought that I was going to die myself."
Dublin police Chief TIm Chatman says that this is the second homicide this weekend.
"Apparently two friends got into an argument," said Chatman. "These are friends. They've been knowing each other for a long time. They were arguing over stuff that didn't make any sense. As a result of that argument, one of the gentlemen just shot him - shot him in the head twice."
When asked what the argument was about, Chatman said, "... at one point in time, they were arguing over the Bible, about forgiveness," the chief said, "and then that turned to something else."
Chatman said Smith was taken to Fairview Park Hospital where he was pronounced dead. He says investigators quickly identified and arrested Pauldo as the suspect.
"He was a college student trying to get an education," a frustrated Chatman said about Smith. "He was in a house. They all knew one another. In fact, there were some parents there, and it went from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds over nothing."
"You have a young man who's trying to get a college education, lost his life by the hands of a friend and it doesn't make sense, these senseless acts of violence we're seeing all over our country that we're killing one another like flies," Chatman said.
Family members say that he was well loved, respected, and was a joyful person.
"A spirit came to me and said, 'Grandma, I'm alright.' I said, 'OK, I can sleep a little better now,'" said Rozier.
