Suspect in road rage shooting had previous issue with a gun

Randy Eugene Epps was still holding his gun when police found him lying in his black Honda Civic with several gunshot wounds Tuesday.

Though his car was still in drive, it didn’t move from the far right lane of Eisenhower Parkway amid lunch hour traffic.

A Bibb County sheriff’s deputy put the car in park, took Epps’ gun and laid it on the asphalt.

As a parade of lights and sirens arrived, William Hollingsworth Jr. stood by his white Dodge Challenger, which was parked beside the black Honda. According to a sheriff’s report, Hollingsworth had shot Epps, firing from his vehicle into Epps’ car.

Epps, 58, was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died about 20 minutes later from multiple gunshot wounds.

Hollingsworth, 22, of Lizella, was placed in the back of a police car where he waited to be questioned.

Macon-Bibb County District Attorney David Cooke received the case file on Wednesday but wanted to read it more carefully before commenting on whether Hollingsworth would face any criminal charges.

When a Telegraph reporter stopped by Hollingsworth’s home on Sofkee Circle, a man sitting on the porch demanded that she leave. A woman who stepped out of the house said Hollingsworth “didn’t want no interviews.”

Hollingsworth was in the news earlier this year because of a gun-related incident.

On March 29, Hollingsworth was detained after a vendor at the Cherry Blossom Festival reported seeing him and another man passing a gun back and forth, according to an incident report from the Bibb County sheriff’s office.

Deputies walked up to the men and asked if they had a concealed weapon. Hollingsworth said yes, and he was detained and his weapon was taken from him, the report said.

The men “were being very loud and stating they had permits and that we were embarrassing them,” a deputy sheriff’s report said.

Hollingsworth’s mother, Tammy Hollingsworth, told deputies she also had a gun in her purse. The deputies took her gun and she was also detained, the report said.

Deputies ran background checks on Hollingsworth, his mother and the other man, and made sure they were licensed to carry. The checks came back clean, the report said, but Hollingsworth and his friend were “asked to leave due to their behavior.”

“All suspects were advised that it is illegal to carry a firearm unsecured (not in a holster),” the report said.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Epps’ widow, Cheryl Epps didn’t feel like talking to a reporter just yet, but said, “I very much have a lot I’d like to say.”

“The crime lab has released his body and I’ve just got other things to deal with right now,” Epps said, adding that a funeral director was on the way to meet her. “My children have actually not let me look at any news or get on Facebook or anything because the kind of stuff that’s been put on there. ... I don’t know who has said what or whatever, but I know that some of it was just not the truth. The thing is, it’s still pending investigation.”

The confrontation between the Epps and Hollingsworth began on Eisenhower Parkway, a witness said, about a mile west from the scene, toward Interstate 475, the sheriff deputy’s report said. The witness said Epps had been tailgating Hollingsworth as they traveled eastbound. At some point, Epps stopped his car to get something out of the trunk.

Words were exchanged at the stoplight.

“Supposedly, the victim pointed his pistol at the suspect through the window, and the suspect fired several shots into the victim’s vehicle, striking him several times,” a deputy noted in the report.

A bystander captured video of the incident on his or her cellphone, but Cooke said the quality of the recording remained to be seen.

This story was originally published October 12, 2016 at 7:25 PM with the headline "Suspect in road rage shooting had previous issue with a gun."