Anthony Crosby Jr., a 25-year-old Black man from Bainbridge, was killed on November 4, 2021, when gunfire tore through the 200 block of Sims Street at about 9 p.m. Officers responding to reports of shots fired found three people suffering from gunshot wounds. Crosby and Destiny Young died from their injuries, while a third victim survived long enough to be taken to Memorial Hospital and then transferred to an out-of-area medical center for further treatment. In the first hours after the shooting, the scene was described as a fast-moving and chaotic homicide investigation, with Bainbridge Public Safety, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Patrol, and the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office all involved as detectives tried to understand who had opened fire and why.
What began as a street-corner shooting soon widened into a deeper case. Investigators later said the November 4 attack was followed by another shooting on November 10 near the same Sims and Powell Streets area, where a victim reported that a vehicle drove by and several shots were fired from its window before the car left. As the case developed, authorities announced arrest warrants tied to the violence. Early public reports said Donovan McCray and Ronnie Thompson Jr. were first wanted on 10 counts of aggravated assault connected to the November 4 shooting, and that McCray, Thompson, and Darryn Javon Borden were also charged with 5 counts of aggravated assault related to the later November 10 shooting. Bainbridge Public Safety publicly warned at the time that McCray should be considered armed and dangerous, and later reported that he was taken into custody on November 30, 2021.
For a time, the public record around the case centered on aggravated assault counts and the search for those responsible, but the prosecution ultimately moved far beyond those early charges. In later court proceedings reported by WALB, Donovan McCray was tried in connection with the 2021 killings and was found guilty on two felony murder charges and 20 other charges. According to that report, he had been charged with 19 counts of aggravated assault, two counts of felony murder, and theft by receiving stolen property, and the jury convicted him on every count except the theft charge. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and the aggravated assault sentences were ordered to run concurrently with that life sentence.
The other men charged in the case did not go through the same kind of trial. WALB reported that McCray’s two co-defendants resolved their cases earlier, in November 2023. Ronnie Thompson pleaded guilty to murder and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Darryn Borden, who was charged with aggravated assault rather than murder, also pleaded guilty and received a 20-year sentence, with 8 years to be served in prison. Taken together, the case moved from a terrifying night of gunfire on a Bainbridge street to arrests, guilty pleas, a murder conviction, and a sentence that ensured at least one of the men prosecutors blamed for Anthony Crosby Jr.’s death would spend the rest of his life in prison.
