Homicide victim had been shot and robbed before

The west Macon man shot and killed in his home Monday had been wounded in another shooting 15 years ago.

Michael Baxley, 53, was found dead inside his carport door at 4432 Pharr Ave. just before noon Monday.

One of the friends who found his body said he had been robbed.

The woman spoke to neighbors briefly as she drove under the crime scene tape surrounding Baxley’s house.

“He’s dead. They robbed him,” she said.

Authorities have not confirmed that robbery might have been a motive in the county’s 26th homicide of 2017.

Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said it was a “gruesome scene” with “blood everywhere.”

In 2002, Baxley also was shot during a robbery attempt at a prior residence in the Forest Place Mobile Home Park just west of Interstate 475.

According to Telegraph archives, Baxley, then 38, was shot in the buttocks with a large-caliber weapon by two men who confronted him as he was headed into his home.

The men reportedly left without getting any money.

Baxley also reportedly told one of his current neighbors that he had been robbed before on Pharr Avenue.

At the crime scene, Bibb sheriff’s Lt. Randy Gonzalez could not immediately say whether deputies had been called to Baxley’s home on Pharr Avenue on other occasions, but that investigators would be looking into that.

Anyone with information in the killing is asked to call for a sheriff’s investigator at 478-751-7500 or phone anonymous tips to Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 877-68-CRIME.

This story was originally published November 7, 2017 at 6:44 AM with the headline "Homicide victim had been shot and robbed before."