Jerry Louis Walton Jr., a 44-year-old Black man, died in Columbus, Georgia, on August 13, 2022, after a night that began with a shocking crash and quickly turned into a homicide investigation. Columbus police said officers were dispatched around 9:54 p.m. to Village Square Apartments on Boxwood Boulevard for what was first reported as an accident with injuries and a vehicle fire.
When they arrived, they found a Ford Ranger pickup truck that had slammed through the brick wall of an apartment unit and ignited part of the building. As firefighters put out the blaze, they discovered Walton’s burned body inside the truck. The scene did not read like a simple wreck for long: investigators found shell casings there, and the case was turned over to the Homicide Unit. The coroner pronounced Walton dead at 10:40 p.m.
What emerged afterward was the outline of a violent encounter that ended with Walton mortally wounded before his truck ever came to rest. Police later announced that their investigation had identified Daquavius Anthony, then 16, as the suspect. A murder warrant was issued under Georgia Senate Bill 440, the law that allows certain juveniles to be charged as adults in serious felony cases, and Anthony was arrested on September 21, 2022. Authorities scheduled him for a preliminary hearing two days later in Recorder’s Court. At that stage of the case, the public record pointed to one named suspect and one arrest, with police treating Walton’s death not as an accidental fire fatality but as a killing tied to gunfire at the scene.
The case did not end with that arrest. Later reporting stated that Anthony, by then 17, pleaded guilty in connection with Walton’s death. According to that reporting, he admitted guilt to voluntary manslaughter, using a gun to commit a felony, and being a minor with a handgun, and he was sentenced to 26 years in prison. The same reporting said Anthony had been 16 when he fired the shot that killed Walton, setting in motion the crash into the apartment building and the fire that followed. I did not find reliable online reporting showing additional suspects, a trial verdict after a contested jury trial, or any other arrests in Walton’s killing beyond Anthony’s case, so the clearest publicly available record points to a single suspect who was arrested, then convicted by guilty plea rather than after trial.
