Dollar General Manager Senselessly Murdered During Hamburger Bun Purchase, Police Later Hunt Down and Kill Suspect
A man accused of killing a Georgia store manager last week while purchasing hamburger buns was killed by law enforcement after he wounded an officer and a K-9 police dog.
It all began on Tuesday at a Dollar General in Columbus where Alexis Hill, 44, was helping a customer check out, according to WTVM-TV in Columbus.
The suspect, identified as Jerome Willis, 33, was buying hamburger buns for $1.58 and handed over two crumpled-up dollar bills. As Hill straightened out the cash, the station reported, Willis allegedly pulled out a handgun and shot her.
Hill, a mother of three, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators tracked down Willis about three hours later, resulting in a gunfight. He shot an officer and a police dog before authorities returned fire, killing him. The wounded officer and K-9 “sustained non-life-threatening injuries,” and received medical treatment, according to a news release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The release stated that local police had requested assistance to investigate the “officer involved shooting.”
Columbus police had “located Willis in a parking lot in the 3800 block of Baker Plaza Drive. Officers gave verbal commands to Willis, but Willis did not comply,” the release read.
“The officers then released the K-9 officer to apprehend Willis. Willis then produced a gun, shot toward the K-9 officer, and continued to point the gun at the officers. The officers fired several shots toward Willis, hitting Willis multiple times. Willis was pronounced deceased on scene.”
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer published a report on Friday, citing a preliminary report from the GBI, which said Hill was shot in the head.
“We got it on video and it’s just a cold-blooded murder,” Columbus Police Chief Stoney Mathis declared.
The GBI crime lab is expected to perform an autopsy on Willis, as the investigation remains active.
Hill’s brother, Johnathan, told WTVM his sister and the gunman did not know each other.
“I won’t go into how I know that,” he said, about the 15:30 mark of the video below. “But it’s a fact that they did not know each other. They were not related, they were not in a relationship. They were complete strangers.
“This is just some random stranger that … walked into my sister’s store and got really violent and confrontational with her. And decided that he wanted to escalate things by shooting her and killing her.”
He also said Hill’s family is devastated, but looks forward to seeing her again in the afterlife.
“It’s just a loss that I’m going to have to deal with, and the family is going to have to deal with,” he told the station at the beginning of the video above. “We can’t replace her. It’s just a part of us that’s just going to be gone until we reunite with her in heaven.”
He described her as a “sweet, kind” person who was “willing to go out of her way to help someone and go the extra mile.”
“She’d give the shirt off her back if she needed to. She was always helping people as far as I could see,” Johnathan said. “One of the last things she did was gather some supplies for someone that was in need. That was like one of her last acts of kindness, was, even up to the day [she died], was helping someone else.”
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