In the late hours of a Monday night in December 2019, a house party on Taylor Road in unincorporated Suwanee, Georgia, turned tragic. Inside the residence, an altercation broke out among some of the attendees, escalating to the point of gunfire. The following morning, on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, police, acting on credible information about a shooting, discovered the body of 20-year-old Christopher Morand, a male resident of Lawrenceville. He had been fatally shot.
Christopher, a 2017 graduate of Collins Hill High School, was a student at both Georgia Gwinnett College and Gwinnett Technical College. He was also employed with a home improvement company and was a member of North Metro Baptist Church. His family learned of the shooting through social media posts before receiving the official, devastating news from law enforcement who had arrived at the scene. At least ten people were believed to have been at the party, though it was unclear how many remained when police arrived hours after the shooting occurred.
The investigation into the homicide quickly progressed as detectives interviewed multiple witnesses who had been present at the party. These interviews provided crucial information that pointed to a suspect. On Friday, December 13, 2019, Gwinnett County police arrested 23-year-old Jose Rivera of Lawrenceville. He was subsequently charged with murder and aggravated assault in connection with Christopher Morand's death. Rivera was taken into custody and held at the Gwinnett County jail without bond.
