Macon’s latest homicide victim was ‘kind and friendly’ 23-year-old found dead in SUV
The body of a young man who had been shot to death was discovered Sunday morning in an automobile on Winton Avenue in Macon’s Unionville neighborhood, the authorities said.
The victim, Eric Vincent Broomfield Jr., 23, was found dead about 7:30 a.m.
Bibb County sheriff’s deputies learned of the death after someone called 911 about “a person down,” sheriff’s officials said in a statement .
“Investigators are continuing to investigate this incident in an attempt to determine the events surrounding” it, the statement said.
The slaying, which appeared to have happened in the 1200 block of Winton — just south of Napier Avenue and a few blocks northwest of the well-traveled intersection of Pio Nono and Montpelier avenues — is the county’s 25th homicide of the year.
Broomfield’s body was found in an older-model Chevrolet TrailBlazer, deputy Bibb coroner Ronnie Miley said.
On Nov. 21, after Broomfield had completed a court-ordered pretrial intervention and diversion program, a robbery-by-snatching charge against him was dismissed, records show.
Broomfield, who had lived off Williamson Road near Southwest High School, was charged with stealing cash and a cellphone from someone in February 2017.
In letters of support for him to enter the pretrial-diversion program last fall, acquaintances spoke well of Broomfield, describing him as “a very honest person ... kind and friendly.”
According to court documents, he had worked at Seminole Precast Manufacturing.
A truck driver Broomfield knew, in a letter to the judge in his case, wrote: “I feel that Eric will have a very bright future. He has many positive influences in his life to help him stay on the right trajectory.”
A friend from high school described Broomfield as “very humble,” someone willing to “give his last to help anyone that is in need.”