Christopher Collins, 29, a Black male, was killed in Columbus, Georgia, in the early hours of March 31, 2024, after Easter Sunday turned violent around Tenth Street. Columbus police said officers were dispatched at 1:01 a.m. to the 2800 block of Tenth Street on a shots-fired call and found Collins lying in the roadway with fatal gunshot wounds. In the confusion of that same night, two other shooting victims were taken to Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital, and one of them, 17-year-old Jania
Mobley, also died. At first the bloodshed appeared to be one terrible burst of violence in the same neighborhood, but investigators later said the killings of Collins and Mobley were separate shootings that happened close together, one after another, in the same area.
As the case unfolded, police and later courtroom testimony painted a more detailed picture of what happened to Collins. Investigators said the shooting took place at a block party on 10th Street between Samson and Benner avenues. Testimony in Recorder’s Court said Collins was struck about 11 times, and that the weapon used was a 9-millimeter Glock. What moved the case forward, according to police testimony, was not just one clue but a chain of them: an eyewitness who identified the shooter, phone records that placed the suspect at the scene, ballistic evidence, and surveillance video from a separate incident that investigators said showed the same gun in the suspect’s hands just 48 hours before Collins was killed.
That suspect was identified as Zayvion Robinson. By late June 2024, Robinson was facing a murder charge and a charge of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with Collins’ death. In court, police testimony said the same 9-millimeter Glock tied Robinson to the March 31 killing and to another violent crime two days earlier. Robinson entered a not guilty plea in the Collins case, and the judge ordered that he be held without bond before sending the case on to Superior Court.
The earlier case added another dark thread to the story. Robinson and Jyquarious Varner were both charged in a March 28, 2024 shooting and vehicle theft at the Mystick Mart on Brown Avenue. Police said a 59-year-old man was shot in the leg and left behind as his car was stolen. Investigators said video footage and phone records connected Robinson and Varner to that attack, and testimony alleged Robinson could be seen armed and then climbing into the backseat of the stolen car, with gunfire later coming from that position. Both Robinson and Varner pleaded not guilty in that case as well, and both were ordered held without bond.
So the investigation into Christopher Collins’ death shifted over time from a chaotic double-homicide scene into a more defined prosecution centered on one named defendant. Early official updates had stressed that Collins’ killing was separate from the Mobley case and, at that stage, no arrest in Collins’ death had been announced. But as more evidence was gathered, authorities publicly tied Robinson to the murder, describing a case built from witness identification, digital evidence, ballistics, and a handgun prosecutors say linked multiple shootings across those final days of March.
