Ex-gangster who got out of prison this summer charged with murders in Macon, Augusta
A man who was convicted in 2007 of a Macon shooting and in the beatings of two men while participating in gang crimes was released from prison in late June and is now accused of committing October murders in Bibb and Richmond counties.
De’Quinn Janile “Quin” Hamlin, 34, was in recent days charged with shooting three men, one who died, outside a Unionville-area home on Cherry Avenue the night of Oct. 10.
He has also been charged with shooting and critically wounding another man hours later who was found shot half a mile away from Cherry Avenue near the intersection of Pio Nono and Napier avenues.
Two weeks later in Augusta on Oct. 24, Hamlin, according to court documents filed the next day, was involved in a murder and kidnapping case.
Records from the Georgia Department of Corrections show that Hamlin was released from Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe on June 30.
He had been in prison since the spring of 2007 when he was convicted in Bibb County in a string of 2006 crimes that the authorities linked to gang activity. One of the violent episodes involved the June 2006 shooting of a man who suffered a punctured lung.
Hamlin served 14 years of a 15-year prison sentence and was to spend six additional years on probation upon his release.
In 2014, early in his eighth year behind bars, he penned a motion seeking a reduction of his sentence.
The handwritten appeal began with a mention that he had accepted responsibility for his crimes and said that he had “made a tremendous change in my life by elevating myself with GOD.”
Hamlin noted that he had taken classes while in prison to help him find work in the free world.
“I have [bettered] myself soul, mind, & body. I’m ready to cope with society,” he went on, adding that he had “[detached] myself from the gang life. ... I am a law abiding citizen now ready to do what’s right.”
Hamlin also wrote in that 2014 motion that he felt his sentence was “harsh” and said putting off his release “will only serve as a set back,” one he deemed “detrimental” for his future prospects. He had hopes of going to tech school and learning to drive semi trucks for a living.
Hamlin’s request for a sentence reduction was denied.
Upon release from prison in June, he was said to have been living south of Macon in Byron.
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.