In the spring of 2015, the life of 30-year-old Garry Bernard Mells was tragically cut short in a violent incident that also claimed the lives of two other men in Savannah, Georgia. On the evening of April 13th, police responded to a call of shots fired at a residence on the 1200 block of N.E. 36th Street. Upon their arrival around 8:30 p.m., officers discovered the bodies of Garry Bernard Mells, his 52-year-old brother Anderson Mells Jr., and 37-year-old Johnnie Jamar Green inside the home where the Mells brothers lived. All three men had been fatally shot.
The initial investigation into the triple homicide led authorities to detain two persons of interest shortly after the discovery of the crime, but they were released after questioning. The case then grew cold, leaving the families of the victims without answers for years. Investigators at the time believed the shootings were a targeted event and were looking into what they described as 'risky activities' that may have been taking place at the residence as a possible connection to the crime. To generate new leads, various law enforcement agencies, including the Savannah Police Department's Undercover Narcotics Investigation Unit, the Chatham-Savannah Counter Narcotics Team, and the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force, joined the investigation.
A significant breakthrough came in August of 2021 when the Savannah Police Department's Major Crimes Unit, having reopened the cold case, announced the arrests of three suspects. A Chatham County grand jury indicted Stanley Hall, 38, John Baker, 29, and Jerrell Williams, 39, on charges of felony murder and malice murder. The arrests were made between August 13th and August 20th, with one suspect, Stanley Hall, having to be taken into custody by a SWAT team after he barricaded himself inside a residence.
However, in a dramatic turn of events, the prosecution of the three suspects came to an unexpected end. In August 2024, the Chatham County District Attorney announced the dismissal of the murder charges against Hall, Williams, and Baker. The decision was made after it came to light that two former Savannah police officers who were involved in the homicide investigation had been indicted for perjury and violation of their oath of office in unrelated cases. This development compromised the evidence and testimony they had provided, leading the District Attorney's office to conclude that they could not ethically proceed with the prosecution. While the possibility of reopening the case remains if new evidence emerges, the dismissal of the charges has once again left the deaths of Garry Bernard Mells, Anderson Mells Jr., and Johnnie Jamar Green without a resolution in the criminal justice system.
