Weekend gambling trip ends with argument, car crash and shooting death near Forsyth
A Forsyth man was shot and killed early Sunday along a highway south of the city after he rammed a car driven by a another man who had picked up his girlfriend along the roadway after a night of gambling, authorities said.
Michael High, 35, of Forsyth was slain in the strange episode that began unfolding about 12:30 a.m. along Ga. 42, Monroe County sheriff’s officials said in an emailed statement.
Investigators said that High’s girlfriend, Cierra Bell, who is from Decatur in metro Atlanta, had been gambling in the Macon County town of Oglethorpe, which lies about 60 miles south of Forsyth.
Bell, 26, was said to have called High to drive down and pick her up, officials said.
“High went and picked up Bell from Oglethorpe and on their way back to Forsyth, they had a verbal altercation. Bell left the vehicle and began to walk (toward) Forsyth,” the sheriff’s statement noted.
It wasn’t clear from the statement where exactly the incident happened.
Moments after Bell exited High’s car, a Decatur man named Wendell Scott, who Bell was believed to have been gambling with in Oglethorpe, according to the statement, apparently happened by on his way north to the Atlanta area.
Scott, 38, “pulled over to ask Bell if she needed a ride back to Decatur,” the statement continued. “As Bell and Scott were talking, High hit Scott’s vehicle in the rear with his vehicle and High’s vehicle went off the road into (a) ditch.”
Officials said High then walked toward Scott’s vehicle and “began to aggressively approach Scott,” and that Scott then shot High.
Bell and Scott were being held Sunday awaiting possible charges, officials said.