His dad was murdered before he was born. 28 years later, he met a similar fate
Milton Sanford Sr.’s grave in Woodlawn Memorial Park lies maybe 250 yards from where Milton Sanford Jr. was buried last month.
The father and son never met, but they share more than a name and final resting place in a hillside cemetery north of the Wal-Mart on Gray Highway in east Macon.
Both were shot and killed — 28 years apart — murdered during the two deadliest years in Macon history.
Sanford Sr., known by his nickname “Shortman,” was gunned down in what officials described as an execution-style assault in March 1992. He was 27.
His girlfriend, pregnant with his son, was also shot.
She survived.
Sixteen weeks later, she gave birth to Sanford Jr., known as “Poohman.”
His birth came midway through what would at the time go down as modern Macon’s deadliest on record.
That year, 43 people countywide died at the hands of others.
Now, in 2020, that grim toll has in recent weeks been eclipsed. Sanford Jr.’s shooting death on Nov. 2 was the first of nine slayings in November, a month that saw the year’s violent-death count climb to 48.
‘It was shocking’
Shortly before 11 a.m. on the second day of November, cops were called to a reported death on Thomas Place.
The dead-end side street parallels Edna Place Drive due south of the bustling intersection at Napier Avenue and Log Cabin Drive.
Sanford Jr. was dead inside a car. He had been shot once.
Circumstances of his death have yet to emerge publicly. The police have arrested a man sought for questioning in the killing.
Diane Sanford-Gilliam, the sister of Sanford Jr.’s slain father, said news of her nephew’s death was devastating.
She told herself, “Here we go again.”
She learned of her nephew’s death in a phone call from her son, who had been close to Poohman.
“It was shocking,” Sanford-Gilliam said. “I couldn’t sleep for the first two or three nights thinking about it. ... I was hurt. I just couldn’t believe it.”
She recalled how her mother, who died in January, had taken Sanford Jr. under her wing. His violent death, Sanford-Gilliam said, would have been a painful blow for her late mother.
“(It) really would have took her out if she was alive because it would have brought back memories with her son,” Sanford-Gilliam said.
She described her slain nephew as humble, quiet. He liked sports, especially football.
“He just didn’t just volunteer to just get in any trouble. You know, he just got hooked up with the wrong people ... driving him in the wrong way,” Sanford-Gilliam said. “He was a sweet person. I told him he was the age of a grown person but he still was like a baby.”
Sometimes on weekends, Sanford Jr. spent time at her place near the Macon Mall on the city’s west side.
“I never will forget one time,” Sanford-Gilliam recalled, “he came to my house and they didn’t want to go to church, him and my son. My son (said), ‘Mom, if I go to church I’m gonna go to sleep.’ I told him, I said, ‘Well, just keep on coming, one day your eyes are gonna open up.’”
Eight months to the day of his slaying, state records show that Sanford Jr. was released from prison. He had served a little over two years behind bars for a burglary conviction in Dooly County. That prison stretch, according to records, had followed another two-year incarceration in connection with a 2014 burglary in Bibb County.
A couple of days after Poohman’s funeral — as the realization sank in that not only had her brother been a homicide victim, but now his son had been slain as well — she was asked how she thought Poohman not having his father around may have factored in.
“He never got a chance to meet his daddy because he was dead before he was born. ... He never talked about his daddy,” she said. “But I used to tell him, ‘You know what, you wouldn’t be doing this stuff you’re doing now if your daddy was living.’ His daddy was doing his best to keep the young ones out of trouble, his nieces and nephews. He stayed onto the nephews about doing the right thing.”
Speaking then of her slain nephew, she added, “I just felt like he needed more love in his life.”
‘Grief on top of grief’
Sanford Jr. was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park on Nov. 9.
A preacher at Poohman’s funeral, the Rev. Dexter A. Jordan, mentioned how city pastors, as part of a group called the Concord Project, are seeking ways to curtail violence.
It was the third funeral since May that Jordan had presided over in which the dead person was a homicide victim.
As several dozen mourners looked on, Jordan’s voice at times boomed.
In quieter moments, he mentioned having known some of Sanford Jr.’s kin for years and how they were a loving family.
“I know that Milton has been taught well,” the preacher said in a eulogy that a cousin of Poohman’s posted in a Facebook video. “And I believe within a shadow of a doubt — amen — even under the predicaments of the hand that we have been dealt, I believe within my heart we don’t have to worry about where Milton is. Because he’s all right now.”
Jordan spoke of Black-on-Black crime and said, “We’ve got to learn how to come together as a family.”
Later, his voice rising, Jordan said, “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m tired of the devil stealing lives. ... His aim is to kill, steal and destroy.”
He was quick to note that even amid the hurt, “the devil did not win.”
Nine days later while recalling the funeral to a reporter, Jordan, who is pastor of Center Hill Baptist Church in the heart of Unionville, was asked about the similarly tragic ends that Sanford Sr. and his son met: What might it mean for their families and the town at large?
“Grief on top of grief. ... That’s so devastating to be hit with that twice,” Jordan said, “and basically almost in the same exact way. ... How can they grasp it?”
Then he spoke of the city’s spiking homicide rate, the ensuing grief for loved ones of victims.
“It leaves the family in a numb state. ... No one would ever want to have to deal with that, especially as a parent,” Jordan said. “The loss of a child is a great grief. It’s just something that they just don’t get over overnight. And some never get over it.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM.