Arrest made in shooting death of aspiring Macon rapper

A 22-year-old Macon man was arrested Tuesday night after an argument the night before turned deadly.

Harold Varnord Wallace Jr. was charged with murder and the discharge of firearms on the property of another at 8 p.m. Tuesday and taken to the Bibb County jail, said Bibb County sheriff's Sgt. Linda Howard. He is scheduled to have a bail hearing Wednesday afternoon.

Keenan Olajawon Guice had been shot once in the chest late Monday night after an argument at an apartment complex off Vineville Avenue escalated into an exchange of gunfire. The 20-year-old was pronounced dead at Cobblestone Square Apartments on Riley Avenue shortly after the 10 p.m. shooting, Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said.

Deangelo Davis, 33, also was shot once in the chest. He remained in serious condition Tuesday, according to a news release from the Bibb County Sheriff's Office.

Wallace was interviewed at the scene and later taken to the sheriff's office's investigation division and questioned further before he was placed under arrest, Howard said.

Sometime before the shooting Monday night, Guice talked to his friend, Javon Jones, about making album covers for their rap mixtapes they planned to release in January.

"We was gonna drop both of them back to back," Jones recalled Tuesday afternoon. "Then I woke up Tuesday morning and I seen the post saying he was dead."

Jones, a senior at Howard High School, said he and Guice have been friends since his freshman year.

"It was so shocking because I just knew Keenan wasn't that person," Jones said. "He was the coolest guy you could ever meet. ... He was never into street life."

Keenan's slaying is Bibb County's 28th homicide in 2017. He also is the 17th young black man to be fatally shot in Bibb County this year.

Jones said he and Keenan rapped about what it is like to live in Macon.

"Where we live, there's just a lot that go on. Anything can happen to anybody," Jones said, adding that he also knew Damian Bernard “Little Petey” Clayton, the 16-year-old shot to death in 2014 at a Macon Little League ball park.

"It's just wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "You get into an altercation with somebody and ... in your head it's not that far, but in their head it's, 'Oh, I got to kill this person.' "

Anyone with information about the shootings is urged to call the sheriff's office at 478-751-7500, or call Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.

Laura Corley 744-4334; @Lauraecor

This story was originally published December 19, 2017 at 10:05 PM with the headline "Arrest made in shooting death of aspiring Macon rapper."