Brother of Bibb County teen killed at Macon Mall in August now charged with his murder
The brother of a Macon teen who was shot and killed inside the Macon Mall in early August was arrested Tuesday and charged with felony murder in connection with the teen’s death.
The brother, Kowasis Quentrell Moore, 19, was also jailed on an armed robbery charge in the slaying, which happened at the mall on the afternoon of Aug. 1 during a fight over a stolen firearm, officials said.
Moore’s brother, 17-year-old Quentavious Moore, was pronounced dead at a local hospital less than an hour after being shot.
Several people were thought to have been involved in the altercation and more charges were expected. Officials have yet to say who may have fired the shot that killed Quentavious Moore.
The felony murder charge against Kowasis Moore implies that someone else may have been the shooter. And it alleges that in the process of Quentavious Moore being fatally shot, Kowasis Moore was involved in an underlying felony, in this case armed robbery.
The summertime shooting which happened on a Sunday afternoon in what was once Middle Georgia’s shopping destination generated extensive news coverage. The case is one of the city’s highest-profile homicides of 2021.
Investigators have examined the case for the past several months and have been tight-lipped about whether any charges would emerge.
Initial reports
An early account of the slaying first emerged in the days after the shooting in a sheriff’s report filed by one of the first deputies to arrive at the Eisenhower Parkway shopping center.
That deputy noted that when he got there he saw Quentavious Moore on the ground, surrounded by mall patrons and saw Kowasis Moore “supporting” his dying brother, who had been shot in the chest and in his right arm.
A woman at a nail salon told the deputy she had been outside the salon and seen someone walking by who appeared to trip and that “suddenly she heard (a) physical altercation,” the report said.
Another witness told the deputy that he saw a group of three “men” who were “attacking” one man. According to the report, which did not clearly specify the people involved, three males were “holding down” a fourth male. The male being held down could be heard “stating that if he got up, he was going to shoot,” the report read.
When that male did get up, the report went on, he was “grabbed by the waistline by one of the attackers. Another (attacker) searched his waistline looking for a gun” when the male who’d been held down “broke free, shot one of the attackers and retreated.”
The name of the person who opened fire was not mentioned in the write-up and the eyewitness reported to the deputy that he heard just one shot. A single shell casing was found below some stairs near the nail salon, the report said.
The deputy’s report said that after Quentavious Moore was taken to the hospital in downtown Macon, Kowasis Moore told an investigator that he had been at the mall with Quentavious and a cousin of theirs.
Kowasis Moore, according to the report, “also said his brother (Quentavious) had a gun which he believed was a 40 caliber ... (and) they had an altercation with 1 male.”
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 3:13 PM.