In the early hours of February 14, 2016, a young man’s life was tragically cut short in a parking lot in Waycross, Georgia. Javonte Jerome Wade, a 20-year-old male, was walking to his car when he was fatally shot. The incident occurred shortly after 2 a.m. in the 200 block of Knight Avenue, near a local Dairy Queen. Emergency services rushed Wade to the Mayo Clinic in Waycross, but he succumbed to his injuries a short time later.
The Waycross Police Department, with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, and the Coffee County Sheriff's Office, launched an immediate and thorough investigation into the homicide. Their efforts quickly led to the identification of two suspects. By noon on the same day as the shooting, authorities had arrested 18-year-old Edgar Ivan Velasco-Catalan. He was subsequently charged with murder.
Later that day, a second suspect, 19-year-old Jonathan Jason Guevara, turned himself in to the Waycross Police Department. He was also arrested and faced a murder charge in connection with the shooting death of Javonte Wade. Both Velasco-Catalan and Guevara were booked into the Ware County Sheriff's Office jail. The swift arrests brought a sense of progress to a community shaken by the violent loss of a young life.
