Nearly four years and nine months after Gwendolyn Cole was killed in a spray of gunfire at her front door in east Macon, two men are charged with murder.

Marlon Shurell Jackson, 33, of Sunnydale Drive in Macon was arrested at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and booked into the Bibb County jail, according to Macon police.

Benjamin Leronne Finney, 35, was also arrested and taken to the Jones County jail, according to a Macon Police Department news release.

Jones County sheriff’s Capt. Guy Mosteller said Finney was being held in their jail on a misdemeanor possession charge and on a federal probation violation. At some point he is expected to be sent to Bibb County on the murder charge.

Cole, who was 55 when she died, answered the door of her Bradstone Circle home at about 10 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2008.

Someone asked for her son Alfonso and when she said “no,” the gunman opened fire.

She was shot multiple times as the gunman fired more than 70 rounds from a semi-automatic assault rifle. Cole, who was wounded in the torso and arms, died early the next morning.

Dozens of bullets riddled her house and shattered her sliding glass back doors on a corner lot off Millerfield Road. Several small dents were scattered halfway up the maroon metal front door. Shards of glass littered the driveway from a broken garage door window overhead.

Macon Police Chief Mike Burns lauded investigator David Patterson, who made the arrests with help from the Jones County Sheriff’s Office and the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force.

“(Macon Police Department) investigators don’t quit,” Burns said in the news release. “Every case is important to them, and they follow every lead in order to bring suspects to justice, no matter how long it takes.”

To contact writer Liz Fabian, call 744-4303.