A triple homicide at a gun range in Grantville, Georgia is making headlines. It is being reported as a murder mixed with robbery. It’s estimated 40 guns are missing from the range. Police have released the 911 call made by the son of two of the victims and father of the third.
Follow up: A 21-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a fatal armed robbery at a Georgia gun range that left three members of a family dead last week. Jacob Christian Muse, of College Park, is charged with three counts of malice murder, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release Friday.
Early days but looks good for your instinct. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think your point that he didn’t explain what he was doing there on the call is a big pointer to him having little if any guilty knowledge.
I believe people with guilty knowledge just can't help themselves and not add explanations. The stress of lying makes it almost impossible to recount just facts - if there are no true facts - the need to embellish, explain, justify, convince, is just too strong. In a way, it might relieve stress a little - because they believe their explanations make the story convincing.
They must have good evidence to so quickly charge him with all three murders. I doubt he did it alone - keeping three people under control is not easy. He needed to gain all information about the surveillance cameras and equipment to remove it, let alone stealing 40 guns. But it doesn't matter in the sense of charges, if he had accomplices, they will be charged the same. So we'll see.
From a practical standpoint - say the caller had a grudge against his parents - this would be the worst way to go about it. Stage a robbery, remove 40 guns, the cameras, and shoot everyone including his son. This makes no sense to me.
I might be willing to discount too much because I don't believe it was him, and I may be terribly biased. But still my conclusion - not him, and he doesn't know who it was, and has no suspects.
At a first glance, it screams deception, and there are multiple indicators of that.
But there's a huge but:
First - culture. I'm willing to discount all the "honeys", the polite introduction, as typical southern speaking patterns.
Second - and this is the bigger one - there is not a single explanation, as in: I came here because.... I just came from my office, grocery shopping, ... anything like that. He is simply recounting facts. That is very reassuring. There is no need to explain or justify.
Looking at the circumstances - 40 guns stolen, surveillance cameras and recordings gone - it does look like a robbery gone bad. (BTW, what's with that phrase? Does it mean a robbery where nobody was killed didn't go bad? Was that a good robbery? But I digress...)
I'm assuming, which I shouldn't, but it sounds like he could see his son from the window, but not his parents. He knew his parents should be there, but he doesn't know, they could have been abducted, forced to withdraw money from an ATM, etc. He doesn't see them, so he doesn't speculate.
Priorities - yeah I think somebody’s robbed us and probably shot my, my, my family - yes that is concerning, but I'm willing to give him a pass even on this one. Why? He is the coroner, he is in contact with a lot of crime and crime victims. He might have been worried about his family and the risk of robbery. The risk to the gun shop owners starts with a robbery - with the risk of escalation into murder. He does not know either at this point, so he is telling the logical sequence of events. It would be unreasonable to assume that somebody came to kill them and took the guns to cover up that fact. In that case the order should be reversed.
So, was the caller the killer? We don't know about the family background, and of course anything can happen, any family dispute can turn deadly in a shooting range.
You make some really good points, I agree on the typical southern politeness. The best catch there is he doesn’t explain why he went there so there is no story telling from that point.
I don’t think there’s anything in his words that suggest he pulled a trigger but there is something off in his words that suggest to me he knows more than he revealed in the call.
However, in subsequent statements Hawk is very big on how religion is giving him comfort, he shows no anger or concern with finding the person or people who did it. This may be in character, or...
“We are grieving, we are hurt, but God’s grace is sufficient. God is in control of this whole matter.” “I have hope. I know I will see all three of my loved ones again -- My dad, my mom and my son. They are in heaven,” “God has been preparing me for this for my whole life, being a paramedic, being a coroner. He’s going to get me through this,”
Hmmmmm...... I agree with you his language implies forgiveness, when the focus should be on finding the killers. (I once saw a statement about a family who's child was killed when a car drove into a McDonalds - I'm probably not remembering this correctly, just to give a general idea of the situation - and half an hour later they expressed their forgiveness for the driver. I can't get into the mind-set of people doing this at all.)
People don't go through the five stages of grief necessarily in the same order. But he starts with acceptance. Maybe anger will come later, or he will repress it. He might be extremely religious and be "grateful" to have this crutch to lean on now.
IDK - it will take more to talk me out of my biases ;)
But this is based on my practical considerations and my assumption he had no reason to kill them.
Why was he there? If he went to check up on them, why didn't he have the key with him?
He told Rawlins he has trained as a first responder for a long time, despite unknowingly responding to what would become his own family emergency.
Was he called there? By whom?
Richard Hawk, who was the first person on scene of the triple homicide and robbery
Follow up: A 21-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a fatal armed robbery at a Georgia gun range that left three members of a family dead last week. Jacob Christian Muse, of College Park, is charged with three counts of malice murder, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release Friday.
Early days but looks good for your instinct. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think your point that he didn’t explain what he was doing there on the call is a big pointer to him having little if any guilty knowledge.
I believe people with guilty knowledge just can't help themselves and not add explanations. The stress of lying makes it almost impossible to recount just facts - if there are no true facts - the need to embellish, explain, justify, convince, is just too strong. In a way, it might relieve stress a little - because they believe their explanations make the story convincing.
They must have good evidence to so quickly charge him with all three murders. I doubt he did it alone - keeping three people under control is not easy. He needed to gain all information about the surveillance cameras and equipment to remove it, let alone stealing 40 guns. But it doesn't matter in the sense of charges, if he had accomplices, they will be charged the same. So we'll see.
continued ...
From a practical standpoint - say the caller had a grudge against his parents - this would be the worst way to go about it. Stage a robbery, remove 40 guns, the cameras, and shoot everyone including his son. This makes no sense to me.
I might be willing to discount too much because I don't believe it was him, and I may be terribly biased. But still my conclusion - not him, and he doesn't know who it was, and has no suspects.
My argument: justifications are missing.
At a first glance, it screams deception, and there are multiple indicators of that.
But there's a huge but:
First - culture. I'm willing to discount all the "honeys", the polite introduction, as typical southern speaking patterns.
Second - and this is the bigger one - there is not a single explanation, as in: I came here because.... I just came from my office, grocery shopping, ... anything like that. He is simply recounting facts. That is very reassuring. There is no need to explain or justify.
Looking at the circumstances - 40 guns stolen, surveillance cameras and recordings gone - it does look like a robbery gone bad. (BTW, what's with that phrase? Does it mean a robbery where nobody was killed didn't go bad? Was that a good robbery? But I digress...)
I'm assuming, which I shouldn't, but it sounds like he could see his son from the window, but not his parents. He knew his parents should be there, but he doesn't know, they could have been abducted, forced to withdraw money from an ATM, etc. He doesn't see them, so he doesn't speculate.
Priorities - yeah I think somebody’s robbed us and probably shot my, my, my family - yes that is concerning, but I'm willing to give him a pass even on this one. Why? He is the coroner, he is in contact with a lot of crime and crime victims. He might have been worried about his family and the risk of robbery. The risk to the gun shop owners starts with a robbery - with the risk of escalation into murder. He does not know either at this point, so he is telling the logical sequence of events. It would be unreasonable to assume that somebody came to kill them and took the guns to cover up that fact. In that case the order should be reversed.
So, was the caller the killer? We don't know about the family background, and of course anything can happen, any family dispute can turn deadly in a shooting range.
You make some really good points, I agree on the typical southern politeness. The best catch there is he doesn’t explain why he went there so there is no story telling from that point.
I don’t think there’s anything in his words that suggest he pulled a trigger but there is something off in his words that suggest to me he knows more than he revealed in the call.
However, in subsequent statements Hawk is very big on how religion is giving him comfort, he shows no anger or concern with finding the person or people who did it. This may be in character, or...
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/coweta-county/god-is-control-this-son-father-3-killed-gun-range-says-faith-is-getting-family-by/VLVAKKRVKJHDFFOMPMBREQ425A/
“We are grieving, we are hurt, but God’s grace is sufficient. God is in control of this whole matter.” “I have hope. I know I will see all three of my loved ones again -- My dad, my mom and my son. They are in heaven,” “God has been preparing me for this for my whole life, being a paramedic, being a coroner. He’s going to get me through this,”
Hmmmmm...... I agree with you his language implies forgiveness, when the focus should be on finding the killers. (I once saw a statement about a family who's child was killed when a car drove into a McDonalds - I'm probably not remembering this correctly, just to give a general idea of the situation - and half an hour later they expressed their forgiveness for the driver. I can't get into the mind-set of people doing this at all.)
People don't go through the five stages of grief necessarily in the same order. But he starts with acceptance. Maybe anger will come later, or he will repress it. He might be extremely religious and be "grateful" to have this crutch to lean on now.
IDK - it will take more to talk me out of my biases ;)
But this is based on my practical considerations and my assumption he had no reason to kill them.
Why was he there? If he went to check up on them, why didn't he have the key with him?
He told Rawlins he has trained as a first responder for a long time, despite unknowingly responding to what would become his own family emergency.
Was he called there? By whom?
Richard Hawk, who was the first person on scene of the triple homicide and robbery
This is all very confusing.