Carlos Clay Lemons, a 26-year-old Black male from Decatur, Georgia, was working the overnight shift at Spin Cycle Coin Laundry in Belvedere Plaza when the ordinary rhythm of a late-night business turned deadly. In the earliest hours of April 28, 2017, gunfire broke out outside the laundromat on Memorial Drive near Columbia Drive, and Lemons was shot multiple times.
He died at the scene, leaving behind grieving relatives who gathered outside the business in shock as police sealed off the area and began piecing together what had happened. Family and local reports described him as a young father and a newly promoted worker, making the violence feel even crueler against the backdrop of a man who appeared to be building his life forward.
At first, the killing seemed to unfold in fragments: a laundromat employee shot outside the place where he worked, surveillance video under review, and investigators trying to understand why he had been targeted. As the case developed, authorities said the shooting was tied to a robbery plan. According to police and arrest-warrant details reported by local outlets, Lemons noticed men acting suspiciously outside the business and went out to confront them. Investigators later said he had been lured outside and then shot, turning what should have been a routine act of protecting his workplace into the moment that cost him his life.
Two months later, the investigation took a dramatic turn. Police arrested Kevin Ward Clark Jr., then 19, and identified him as the suspected gunman. Reports said his arrest on a probation violation helped investigators connect him to the homicide. Detectives then named his father, Kevin Ward Clark Sr., as a second suspect, saying the father and son had acted together. Clark Sr. was sought by police and then surrendered to deputies without incident. Both men were charged in connection with Lemons’ killing, with local reporting variously describing the charges as murder and felony murder. Authorities said the pair had planned to rob the laundromat and that the confrontation outside ended with Lemons being shot to death.
By August 2017, both defendants had appeared in court, and the case had moved from a mystery killing into a prosecution centered on a father-and-son team accused of carrying out the crime together. Public reporting widely available on the case documents the arrests, the allegations that the shooting happened during a robbery attempt, and the early court proceedings. But those same public sources do not clearly show a later trial result, conviction, or final sentencing outcome, leaving the publicly visible record strongest on how Lemons died and who was charged, but less clear on how the criminal case ultimately ended.
