In the late hours of January 26, 2014, a violent home invasion in a northwest Atlanta apartment complex claimed the life of 35-year-old Randy Menefee. The College Park man was fatally shot in the chest and arm inside an apartment at the Allen Hill complex off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The incident unfolded at approximately 11:25 p.m. when a woman at the residence answered a knock at the door.
Four masked men then forced their way into the apartment, demanding money.
The armed intruders robbed Menefee before shooting him in front of his 11-year-old daughter. After the shooting, the assailants fled the scene with a mere $136. Atlanta police officers, who were initially responding to a call about a dispute involving a weapon, arrived to find Menefee deceased inside the apartment.
Within two days of the murder, investigators identified and secured arrest warrants for two suspects: 27-year-old Demario Franklin and 28-year-old Jamal Chandler. Both men were subsequently apprehended and charged with murder. A third suspect, Andreas Perkins, was arrested on February 11, 2014. All three men had prior felony convictions.
In March 2017, Jamal Chandler, then 30, and Andreas Perkins, then 20, were convicted by a Fulton County jury on a slew of charges including murder, felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and cruelty to children. Both men were sentenced to life in prison plus an additional 60 years. During the investigation, both Chandler and Perkins claimed they were outside the apartment when they heard gunshots and ran inside to help. However, evidence from the scene contradicted their accounts. An eyewitness also testified to seeing the two men putting on masks just before entering Menefee's apartment building. The status of the case against the third suspect, Demario Franklin, and the identity of the fourth masked man were not detailed in the available information.
