On a tragic Sunday evening, January 31, 2016, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the lives of George Dillard, a 24-year-old Black male, and his girlfriend, Lakita Hicks, 25, were cut short in a brutal act of violence. The couple was shot and killed inside their duplex home on East 13th Street. The only witness to this horrific event was their five-year-old son, who was left unharmed.
In a display of incredible bravery, the young boy called 911 to report that his parents had been shot.
When the dispatcher answered, the child's calm and heartbreaking words sent a chill through the emergency response system. He told the dispatcher, 'My daddy and my momma got shot.' When asked if they were fighting, he clarified, 'No, this dude shot them.' Authorities arrived to find the devastating scene the little boy had described. Dillard and Hicks were both deceased, having been shot execution-style in their home. In the immediate aftermath, police confirmed that Dillard was a known gang member, though they did not immediately link the shooting to gang activity.
For six years, the case remained cold, a painful open wound for the families of George Dillard and Lakita Hicks, and for the young boy who had witnessed the unimaginable. Then, in March 2022, a breakthrough brought a long-awaited sense of justice. The Hamilton County District Attorney's Office Cold Case Unit announced that they had made an arrest in the double homicide. James Joshua Martin, 28, was indicted by a grand jury and charged with two counts of first-degree felony murder for his alleged role in the deaths of Dillard and Hicks. The arrest was made possible by new evidence that had been presented to the grand jury. At the time of the indictment, Martin was already being held in a federal facility on firearms and drug charges. The news of the arrest brought a measure of closure to the families who had waited so long for answers.
