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On July 18, 2008, Genai Coleman was sitting in her automotive close to a transit station and studying her Bible when a person with a gun approached her.
The assailant, who had walked out of a gasoline station throughout the road, pointed his weapon at her and demanded that she get out of her gold Dodge Stratus. He shot the 40-year-old within the chest, pulled her out of the car and drove away.
Coleman, a Gwinnett County, Georgia resident, did not make it.
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The homicide is being explored in Oxygen’s true-crime collection, “The Actual Murders of Atlanta.” It explores “stunning, sinful and salacious circumstances” within the “metropolitan mecca of music, leisure and tech.” It options interviews with family members, investigators and others related to the circumstances being profiled.
Genai Coleman was murdered on July 18, 2008. She was 40. The Navy Reservist was gunned down in her automotive outdoors an Atlanta mall. (Oxygen)
Brittany Barrington, the crime scene supervisor of the Gwinnett County Police Dept., was on the scene.
“It is a crime of alternative,” Barrington defined to Fox Information Digital. “She was doing what individuals do on daily basis, and I nonetheless do it generally – everyone does. You’re simply sitting in your automotive in your telephone, not paying consideration, simply in a random parking zone. He took benefit of that. It’s actually a criminal offense of alternative. He wanted her automotive, and he was going to take it.”
Coleman’s household later contacted the police, anxious that the punctual mom of three adopted youngsters had by no means returned house. Investigators confirmed that Coleman was the sufferer.
Coleman was a beloved schoolteacher and soon-to-be grandmother, the episode revealed.
Genai Coleman was a beloved Georgia schoolteacher and soon-to-be grandmother. She is seen right here with an in depth pal. (Oxygen)
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Whereas Coleman was parked close to a well-liked mall, the crime scene was “minimal,” stated Barrington. There was a pool of blood and nil suspects.
“All the primary proof that will have supplied leads proper off the bat was gone,” she stated. “What stood out to me was that the automotive was lacking. There have been no fired cartridge casings on the bottom. And we knew a shot was fired. In order that instantly roused my suspicion that possibly the casing was left within the automotive. Perhaps the casing was picked up. Perhaps the firearm that was used was a revolver, so there could be no casings left behind.”
There was a witness.
Genai Coleman was ready for her daughter to come back out of labor when she was focused by a stranger. (Oxygen)
Based on the episode, a bus driver described how she had seen a person stroll round to the motive force’s aspect of the car, calling Coleman a “mothef—-r.” She heard a gunshot and noticed the person pull Coleman out of the automotive to the bottom.
Coleman’s automotive was discovered parked in loads about 40 miles away. A cigarette butt was discovered on the automotive ground.
“The small probability of discovering that cigarette butt supplied an enormous DNA lead,” stated Barrington. “It began up an entire new side of the investigation shortly.”
The cigarette was submitted for DNA.
The episode additionally described how detectives reviewed surveillance footage and noticed a person who was buying a pack of cigarettes – Bronson Lights – from the gasoline station. The Bronson filters have been a match to the filter they discovered from the recovered cigarette butt. The identical man was additionally seen strolling by a parking zone situated about 15 toes from the place the car was dumped.
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A cigarette butt was discovered inside Genai Coleman’s automotive. Members of the family confirmed that Coleman wasn’t a smoker. (Oyxgen)
The DNA outcomes got here again. It led to Donald Smith.
Based on investigators, Smith was beforehand charged with armed theft, making him a “particular suspect.” They obtained his cellphone information and found that his telephone had pinged towers close to the crime scene on the night time the homicide came about. He additionally seemed identical to the person noticed on surveillance.
The police have been sure that they had their killer. However when Smith was introduced in for questioning, he insisted that he had by no means seen Coleman or her automotive. When police advised him that they had his DNA, Smith replied, “So what?”
“My DNA couldn’t have been in that automotive, as a result of I’ve by no means been in that automotive,” stated Smith.
One witness, a bus driver, heard a gunshot. She then noticed Genai Coleman being pulled out of her automotive by a person. (Oxygen)
Smith was then proven the surveillance footage.
“That’s undoubtedly not me,” he stated.
Smith went on to share that the cellphone quantity police discovered had been his brother’s – an similar twin.
“Donald and Ronald – he’s my twin,” stated Smith.
Barrington stated {that a} homicide case involving similar twins is “extraordinarily uncommon.”
“That is the one main murder case that the division has had with similar twins,” she defined. “Since then, I haven’t had an extra crime scene that concerned similar twins. This was a singular expertise. . . . You don’t usually cope with this. It’s normally a single individual, otherwise you do have twins, however they’re fraternal twins. However the uniqueness of similar twins could be very uncommon.”
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The fingerprints found by police belonged to Ronald Smith. (Oxygen)
Smith initially refused to implicate his brother Ronald Smith, who additionally lived in Gwinnett County. However he later confirmed that the person within the surveillance video was Ronald.
Along with the cigarette butt, fingerprints have been lifted from the automotive. They’d be the important thing to determining which twin had finished it.
“Even in the event you’re an similar twin, you’re going to have distinctive fingerprint traits that set you aside out of your sibling,” stated Barrington. “That’s what helped to find out which brother had their palms on the highest of the roof of Genai’s automotive so we may determine which brother was the precise suspect.”
The fingerprints have been a match for Ronald.
Ronald, who was arrested, later admitted to killing Coleman and taking her automotive earlier than leaving it behind. He claimed that the taking pictures had been “an accident.”
“It was a hair set off,” Ronald claimed, the Oxygen collection reveals. “I got down to take a automotive . . . at gunpoint. The gun went off.”
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In October 2012, Ronald was convicted on costs of homicide, felony homicide, aggravated assault, hijacking a motorized vehicle and possession of a weapon throughout the fee of a felony. The Gwinnett Day by day Publish reported that he had been sentenced to life plus 25 years in jail.
Barrington stated a criminal offense like this “may occur to anybody at any time.”
“Concentrate on your environment,” she warned. “And likewise know that detectives, the police division, anybody investigating, has the eagerness to get justice. They need to assist.”
“There’s an emotional toll,” Barrington mirrored. “There’s an expert toll, too. However for this reason we’re right here. This is the reason we exist.”
“The Actual Murders of Atlanta” airs Saturdays at 9 p.m.
