In the early hours of Saturday, June 10, 2023, the life of Jamie Bernard Burton Jr., a 25-year-old Black man, was cut short by gunfire in Savannah, Georgia. Chatham County police officers responded to a call about shots fired at the Westlake Apartments around 6 a.m. In the breezeway of one of the buildings, they discovered Burton, who had been fatally shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators began working the case immediately, stating that they did not believe the shooting was a random act. A few days later, detectives asked for the public's help in locating three people they wanted to question: 24-year-old Shaddrick Lacount, 24-year-old Brandon Stark, and 64-year-old Sherry Myers.
At the time, police noted that both Lacount and Myers had active warrants for their arrests in cases unrelated to the homicide.
The investigation progressed, and on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, Chatham County police announced the arrests of three suspects. Shaddrick Marquis Lacount, 24, Dwayne Singleton Jr., 23, and Montrez Hopson, 21, were taken into custody. All three men were charged with the murder of Jamie Bernard Burton Jr. and were booked into the Chatham County Detention Center.
On September 20, 2023, a Chatham County grand jury returned an indictment against all three men, formally charging them with murder. As of September 2023, court proceedings for the three individuals charged in Burton’s death were pending.
