In the late hours of a Monday night in Atlanta, Georgia, 23-year-old Shymel DaShon Drinks was found shot to death inside his parked car. The discovery was made on March 14, 2022, in the Mechanicsville neighborhood, where his vehicle was stopped under an I-20 overpass on Windsor Street. He had sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators believe the shooting was a targeted and gang-related incident.
According to the Atlanta Police Department's homicide unit commander, suspects in another vehicle pulled up alongside Drinks' car while he was at a stoplight and unleashed a barrage of bullets into his vehicle. It was stated by police that both Drinks and the three suspects were members of a street gang.
Within days of the shooting, two suspects were apprehended. Shannon Jackson, 29, and Quamarvious Nichols, 27, were taken into custody and faced charges of felony murder and criminal street gang violence. Their arrest followed a police chase, during which they reportedly discarded weapons from their vehicle before being caught. A third suspect, identified as 27-year-old Miles Nichols, also had murder charges filed against him but was not immediately apprehended.
The investigation into Shymel Drinks' death became intertwined with the high-profile YSL RICO trial involving the rapper Young Thug. Drinks' murder was listed as one of the 191 overt acts in the RICO conspiracy charge. Shannon Stillwell, identified as one of the defendants in the YSL case, was specifically charged with Drinks' murder. Quamarvious Nichols, while also a defendant in the YSL trial and initially charged with murder, later entered a plea deal for RICO conspiracy. Prosecutors stated they did not believe Nichols was in the car from which the shots were fired but was in a nearby vehicle. His lawyer maintained that Nichols denied any involvement in the murder itself. The motive for the shooting was presented in court as being part of a gang feud, which had escalated following the stabbing of a rival gang member in jail earlier that year.
