Stashed guns could be behind slaying of Bibb sheriff's clerk

Vernard Mays answered his back door Tuesday night after several men gathered near his home at the corner of Second and Ell streets.

Minutes later, his mother huddled across his wounded body on the floor of her locked bedroom, trying to shield him from more gunfire.

Mays, a 23-year-old civilian employee of the Bibb County Sheriff's Office, had been fatally wounded about 9:20 p.m. Tuesday.

"Some shots rang out and Vernard was struck," Bibb County Sheriff David Davis said at the crime scene just after midnight. "He ran back inside where his mother was in a back bedroom, where he collapsed."

Wednesday afternoon, deputies charged 19-year-old Michael Dewayne Hardy Jr. with felony murder in Mays' death, according to a release that did not mention a motive or any details about the killing.

Contessa Jones, who works at the Macon-Bibb 911 Center, called her colleagues to report that her son had been shot.

When deputies arrived, mother and son were still locked in the room.

"I think the shooters are in the house," Jones told the officers.

Emergency medical crews rushed Mays to the Medical Center, Navicent Health, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators initially focused on an afternoon car accident as a possible impetus for the slaying of the young man who entered warrants and stolen property into the national crime computer at the sheriff's office.

"We know it was several individuals who were at this house and who fired shots, but we're trying to figure out exactly what the motivation was and what the connection might have been. There's no indication, right now, that Vernard was targeted because he was an employee of the sheriff's office. We're just trying to piece everything together."

A witness who was taken in for questioning said his friend was in the vehicle that crashed into a retaining wall on the corner earlier in the day, according to an incident report.

The friend asked the man to retrieve guns stashed in Mays' yard after the wreck.

The witness said about five men he didn't recognize in the dark were in the back of the yard saying they were there to get their guns.

When the witness went to the door and asked Mays about the guns, Mays said he didn't know anything about any guns and turned to walk inside as shots rang out.

The witness ducked behind a car and the shooters scattered.

LaVerne Watts, who lives at the next house on Ell Street, saw the witness lurking between the cars after the shooting.

"From what I heard, it was more than one gun," said Watts. "They just killed him for nothing."

Crime scene tape blocked off the yard of Mays' home as the shattered glass door remained propped open while deputies searched for shell casings and other clues to help identify the shooters.

During much of Wednesday, investigators were questioning people but not getting straight answers, the sheriff said after Chaplain Rick Lanford visited with Mays' colleagues who were grieving his death.

"A very nice guy, very jovial. It it them pretty hard," Lanford said.

"When tragedy occurs, family gathers and this is our family."

Grief counselors also will be made available to sheriff's employees and those at the 911 Center who love Mays and his mother.

Mays' grandmother, Lena Billingslea, said she ran into him while she was getting gas at the Kroger store on Presidential Parkway about six hours before he was killed.

"I've just cried until I can't cry no more," said Billingslea, who came by Mays' home Wednesday afternoon as crime scene technicians were sweeping the yard and marking evidence in the light of day.

"I had no idea that would be my last hug."

'HE HAD A PLAN'

Mays had only been working at the sheriff's office a few months.

"He was a good man. When we did our background check on him it was clean as a whistle," Davis said.

Mays was a "church-going young man," and his mother and grandmother also were heavily involved in their church.

"It's just a tragic loss," Davis said.

Mays led worship at Power of God Holiness Church where his other grandmother, Ethel Woodford, serves as pastor.

"What a wonderful young man," said Walter Woodford, the pastor's husband and Mays' stepgrandfather. "He was just starting his life and he was a great man."

Mays was continuing his education after graduating from Central High School in 2011.

Former principal Erin Weaver remembers him as a student every teacher wanted in class.

"I never heard him say anything ugly about anybody and never heard anybody say anything ugly about him," said Weaver. "Vernard had a voice of an angel. Just a terrific child."

Mays' choral teacher, Isaac Gibson, was overwhelmed with grief and left school early Wednesday.

"He loved, loved, loved to sing," Gibson said of his former student, who often visited school after graduation and sang in the alumni choir each December.

"He was very driven, very focused, very goal-oriented and he had a plan," Gibson said. "The way he left is what gets to me because he was never a person who got into fights with people."

Billingslea finds strength in her grief by thinking about how her precious grandson lived.

She finds it most difficult thinking about the last words of the young man she called "Nard."

"He said, 'Mamma, don't let me die,'" Billingslea was told by family members. "That's so hard to take right there."

She looks for comfort in the recent birth of a new great-grandchild.

"God gives and God takes away," she said.

She realizes she must be strong, as her grandson wouldn't want the family to suffer in sadness.

Billingslea even has a tinge of sympathy for the assailants.

"I'm so sorry these young men who did it messed their lives up because Nard was a chosen vessel from the moment he was in his mother's womb. Everybody just loved him."

The Bibb County Sheriff's Office is urging anyone with information in the case to call 751-7500 and leave a message for an investigator, or phone Macon Regional Crimestoppers and leave an anonymous tip at 877-68-CRIME.

To contact writer Liz Fabian, call 744-4303 and follow her on Twitter@liz_lines.

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Stashed guns could be behind slaying of Bibb sheriff's clerk ."