In the early morning hours of July 17, 2018, a dispute over a small debt culminated in the tragic death of 25-year-old Avery Birthrong. The young woman, a resident of Lilburn, Georgia, was a passenger in a car with her boyfriend, Laurence Parks, and another man, John Durden, when their vehicle was followed and then fired upon. The shooting occurred in Gwinnett County, in the vicinity of Rockbridge Road and Five Forks Trickum Road in Stone Mountain. A single bullet entered the car through the back window, striking Birthrong in the head and killing her.
The driver of the car, in a desperate search for help, drove approximately two miles before pulling into a BP gas station in DeKalb County to call 911. Police arrived at the gas station on Lilburn-Stone Mountain Road at about 4:20 a.m. to find Avery Birthrong deceased in the passenger seat of a white sedan. The two men in the car with Birthrong were initially questioned by police and cooperated with the investigation. One of the men was taken into custody on an outstanding warrant unrelated to the shooting.
The investigation into Birthrong’s death quickly identified a suspect: 29-year-old Visheslav Feder of Lilburn. The motive for the shooting was a debt of sixty to seventy dollars that Birthrong had borrowed from Feder to bail her boyfriend out of jail. Feder had become increasingly threatening when the debt was not repaid all at once. He had reportedly told a mutual friend that he 'would kill' both Birthrong and her boyfriend. On the day of the shooting, Feder sent text messages to the victims stating they were “running on dead time.” Witnesses in the car with Birthrong recognized Feder at the time of the shooting, though they did not know his full name.
Visheslav Feder fled Georgia after the shooting but was apprehended on Saturday, July 21, 2018, in Johnson County, Arkansas, by the Arkansas State Police. He was stopped while driving on Interstate 40. Feder was extradited back to Georgia and faced charges of felony murder and aggravated assault. In February 2022, a jury found Visheslav Feder guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 25 years. Feder later appealed his conviction, arguing that the jury's verdicts were repugnant, but the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the lower court's decision in May 2024.
