In the late hours of a Tuesday night in Stockbridge, Georgia, a burst of gunfire shattered the evening quiet in the parking lot of the Pin Strikes bowling alley on Mount Zion Road. When Clayton County police officers arrived at the scene on February 23, 2016, they discovered a grim tableau. Twenty-three-year-old Patrick Cleveland and his acquaintance, twenty-four-year-old Joshua Robinson, were found shot to death.
One of the young men was discovered inside a vehicle, while the other lay on the pavement nearby, a tragic end to what investigators would soon describe as a drug deal gone tragically wrong.
The initial investigation suggested a perilous exchange involving marijuana had escalated into a deadly shootout. Authorities believed a third individual was present and that a robbery attempt during the transaction led to the fatal gunfire. Evidence recovered at the scene, including firearms and drugs, painted a picture of a volatile confrontation that left two young men dead. The immediate aftermath of the shooting left a void of information, with police launching an intensive search for the third person involved in the deadly altercation.
In the days that followed, the families of Patrick Cleveland and Joshua Robinson were left to grapple with their sudden and violent loss, while the community was unsettled by the brazen nature of the crime in a public place. Despite the ongoing investigation and pleas for information from law enforcement, the trail for the third individual grew cold. The initial reports of a person of interest did not immediately lead to an arrest, and the case, which had begun with a flurry of police activity and media attention, slowly faded from the headlines, leaving more questions than answers and a lingering sense of unresolved justice for the two lives cut short. The investigation into the deaths of Patrick Cleveland and Joshua Robinson remains without a publicly announced resolution, leaving their case an open wound for their families and the Stockbridge community.
