On the afternoon of Thursday, February 25, 2021, Anthony Collins, a 44-year-old Black man, was walking his Jack Russell puppies in his Lawrenceville, Georgia, neighborhood. Shortly after 3 p.m., Gwinnett County Police responded to a call about a man lying in a parking lot in the 1500 block of Riverside Parkway, near a popular dog park and an elementary school.
When they arrived, officers found Collins deceased from a gunshot wound outside of a car.
Investigators began canvassing the area for information. With no immediate motive, the attack was initially considered to be potentially random. Detectives soon obtained home security footage of a person of interest seen walking through a yard minutes before the shooting. Police described the man as having a skinny build, standing approximately 5-foot-10, and known to frequent the area often carrying a pole, stick, or another long object. The department released the video to the public in an appeal for help identifying the man.
Following tips from the community, authorities identified the person in the video as Stanley Nathaniel Elliott, a 70-year-old Lawrenceville resident. Investigators went to Elliott’s home on Friday, February 26, 2021, the day after the shooting, and arrested him. He was taken to the Gwinnett County Jail and held without bond on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. During their investigation, police found the gun used in the killing hidden inside a motorboat in Elliott’s garage.
Evidence presented at trial revealed that the shooting was the culmination of an ongoing neighborhood dispute regarding Collins’ puppies. The two men had a previous confrontation in December 2020, about two months before the murder, when Elliott reportedly tried to strike the puppies with a metal rod. During the trial, jurors viewed surveillance footage from the day of the shooting that showed a man resembling Elliott raising his arm to shoot after a brief interaction with a man walking dogs.
In May 2026, a jury found Stanley Nathaniel Elliott, then 75, guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. A judge sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus an additional five years.
