Police have named a pair of men as suspects in connection with the shooting death of Georgia college student Brianna Long.
In October 2023, Long was working at a The Pier Bar in Remerton, Georgia when a shooting occurred near by. A stray bullet from the shooting reportedly hit and killed her. Another shot injured a coworker.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents and the Remerton police have been searching for the individuals responsible for Long's death for more than a year, and have now charged two suspects.
Tsion Clayton, 23, and Kimone Green, 21, have both been charged with one count of malice murder. Both of the men are from Lowndes County, and both were already in custody on unrelated cases, according to WALB. One of the men is being held in Florida.
GBI agents believe that a conflict between gangs may have played into Long's death. They think the suspects were in Remerton on the night Long was killed to find someone involved in a gang dispute.
Clayton has been arrested three times since the 2023 incident, and Green has been arrested twice.
Additional charges may be brought against the suspects as the investigation continues. Once the investigation wraps, the case will be turned over to the Southern Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office.
The GBI has asked anyone with information relating to the incident to call their investigators.
Long, 21, was a student at Valdosta State University, where she was studying to become a dental hygienist.
Brandi Spinks, Long's mother, spoke to Fox 5 Atlanta shortly after her daughter was killed.
"We are angry. She was our world. She was a cheerleader her whole little life, Miss Paulding County, honors student," Spinks told the broadcaster in 2023. "We just want to know why. We want to know why, and we want to make sure that this person is no longer out there, taking away another innocent life."
The charges in Long's case come just as police in Las Vegas announced they'd made arrests in the reportedly random shooting of 29-year-old mother Hope Ritter.
Like Long, Ritter was also working as a bartender and was attending school. She was weeks away from earning a credential allowing her to work as a barber — and spend more time with her 10-year-old daughter — when she was shot outside her workplace, Atomic Liquors, in Las Vegas.
Police in that instance said the violence was not targeted. Two men – Phillip Strong, 18, and Charles Wright, 20 – have been arrested on open murder charges in connection with the shooting.
