Anthony Jamar Coley, a 27-year-old Black man from Dublin, Georgia, was killed in the early morning hours of April 29, 2025, in a case that unfolded in the backyard of a home on Rutland Drive. Police were sent there at about 2:00 a.m. after the city’s gunshot detection system picked up shots in the area. When officers arrived, they found Coley in the driver’s side area of a car in the backyard, suffering from gunshot wounds. One officer pulled him from the vehicle and began trying to help him as emergency crews came in, but the wounds were severe. He was taken to Fairview Park Hospital, where he later died.
What emerged in the hours after his death gave the shooting an even colder shape. Investigators said the case appeared to be an armed robbery that turned deadly. Reports indicated Coley had been shot twice, with wounds to his chest and lower abdomen. The scene suggested sudden violence, the kind that breaks into the dark without warning and leaves a yard, a car, and a family forever marked by what happened there. Police later said they believed the people accused in the crime did not know Coley, making the attack feel even more senseless.
The first arrest came quickly. A 16-year-old, Dontavis Terrell Lovett, was taken into custody and charged with felony murder and armed robbery in Coley’s death. Authorities said the investigation remained active even after that arrest, signaling they believed more than one person had been involved. That suspicion proved true within a day.
A second suspect, 17-year-old Jacari Antonio Page, later turned himself in to authorities on April 30, 2025. He was also arrested and charged with felony murder and armed robbery. By that point, investigators had publicly tied both teenagers to the fatal encounter, and local police were working the case alongside the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The official picture presented in the reporting was that Coley’s death was the result of a robbery gone wrong, one that ended with him fatally wounded in the backyard before dawn.
Based on the available online reporting, the major publicly reported developments in the case were those two arrests and the filing of felony murder and armed robbery charges against Lovett and Page. The case was expected to be forwarded to the Dublin Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office after the investigation was completed. I did not find later publicly reported developments confirming indictments, trial outcomes, or convictions in the online sources I reviewed, so the clearest reported record is that two teenage suspects were arrested and charged in connection with Coley’s killing.
