Authorities in Georgia have closed an investigation into a mysterious pair of fatal shootings that left three people dead — two close friends who were gunned down in front of their home-office and a neighbor whose body was found days later, police said Thursday.
Columbus Police Detective Anthony Locey confirmed the status of the case in an email.
The development has infuriated the friends’ relatives, with both families questioning the investigation and saying they were never alerted to the police department’s decision to officially close the investigation into the killing of Ronisha “Nikki” Anderson, 51, and Juantonja Richmond, 52, on March 7.
Solomon Adams, 51, lived next door to Anderson and was found dead in his home on March 9.
“It’s pitiful that we have two women who were brutally murdered in broad daylight and from the start of this investigation it’s been riddled with issues and inconsistencies and a lack of attention,” said Brittany Anderson, Nikki Anderson’s niece.
“They didn’t have enough decency to let the families know the case was closed,” she said. “That’s not only distressing. That’s disrespectful.”
Andrionna Williams, a spokeswoman for Richmond’s family, said her relatives had also not been notified.
“It’s extremely difficult on them,” she said.
Neither Locey nor a police department spokeswoman responded to additional requests for comment. In a statement last year, the spokeswoman said the department’s violent crimes unit was “working diligently to bring the case to a resolve and, more importantly, bring the victims’ families closure.”
Besides a brief statement on Facebook, the police department has said little else about the case publicly.
Nikki Anderson, a mother of three, was shot once in the head outside the home-office where she handled billing for her ex-husband’s counseling practice, according to her death certificate. Richmond, a former Army sergeant who worked with Anderson, was shot in the…
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