Michael Jamal Colquitt, a 31-year-old Black man, was killed in McDonough, Georgia, on January 22, 2021, after what later accounts described as a dispute that began over a $600 debt tied to a minor car accident days earlier. According to reporting and later case summaries, he agreed to meet Quintarus Jackson near the L.A. Fitness on Foster Drive to settle the matter. What should have been a chance to close out a disagreement instead turned violent. Investigators later said Jackson pulled a gun and opened fire, and Colquitt and another man, both unarmed, ran toward the nearby QuikTrip on Jonesboro Road looking for safety. The gunfire followed them there, and Colquitt was struck multiple times. Early public reports from police said officers were dispatched to the QuikTrip at about 11:15 to 11:18 p.m. and found him fatally injured at the scene or suffering from gunshot wounds before he died shortly afterward.
In the first hours after the shooting, Quintarus James Jackson was identified by Henry County police as a person of interest, and the search for him moved quickly. News reports at the time said he was found within hours after investigators asked for the public’s help, and police arrested him the next day. Authorities said he was booked into the Henry County Jail without bond. The charges publicly reported against him included murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and traffic offenses. At that stage, investigators said they were still working to determine exactly what had sparked the fatal confrontation, so the case initially carried the feel of a sudden eruption whose full story had not yet been told in public.
Later reporting filled in more of that story. In 2025, accounts of the prosecution said investigators used evidence from Colquitt’s phone and other sources to identify Jackson as the shooter, and that the arrest came after a high-speed chase on Interstate 75 with assistance from the Georgia State Patrol. Those later reports also said the conflict centered on the unpaid $600 and described Colquitt as a “gentle giant” and a church drummer remembered with affection by family and friends. The case ultimately moved beyond arrest: Quintarus Jackson, later reported as 26, entered a guilty plea to malice murder, aggravated assault, and related charges on October 27, 2025, before Henry County Superior Court Judge Pandora Palmer, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Based on the online sources available, Jackson is the only publicly identified suspect tied to Michael Jamal Colquitt’s killing, and the case appears to have ended not in a trial verdict but in a guilty plea that closed the long path from the gas station shooting to final conviction and sentence.
