On the evening of March 21, 2024, a 43-year-old father and youth football coach named Curtis Coleman was driving home from work along Powers Ferry Road in Cobb County, Georgia, when an act of kindness seemingly cost him his life. Believed to be a Good Samaritan, he was flagged down by two men. Shortly after he stopped to help, shots were fired, and Coleman was found deceased in his car from a gunshot wound.
The incident, which occurred in the parking lot of an Extended Stay America, was initially considered a random act of violence, as authorities could find no prior connection between Coleman and his assailants.
For nearly a year and a half, the case remained Cobb County's only unsolved homicide, leaving Coleman's family and his girlfriend, Chanel Wynn, in a prolonged state of grief and uncertainty as they pleaded for answers. The Cobb County Police Department released surveillance video and sketches of two persons of interest, hoping for a break in the case. These images showed two men at Cumberland Mall's food court hours before the shooting and also on a bus earlier that day. Despite the efforts of investigators and multiple increases in the Crime Stoppers reward for information, the investigation continued without an arrest. Friends and family remembered Coleman as a hardworking and kind man with a big heart, a devoted father to his children, whose loss was a devastating blow to his community. A GoFundMe page was set up to support his children.
A significant development in the case finally came in August 2025, when authorities announced the arrests of two suspects in Pennsylvania. Jayden M. Hooks, 21, and Malik Drake, 23, were taken into custody by U.S. Marshals and awaited extradition back to Georgia. They were subsequently charged with felony murder and aggravated assault in connection with Curtis Coleman's death. While investigators did not immediately release a motive, a family friend suggested on a fundraising page that the men had attempted to rob Coleman after he stopped to help them with what appeared to be a stranded car. The arrests brought a long-awaited sense of potential justice for a man whose willingness to help a stranger had a tragic and fatal end.
