Shooting inside a south Macon ‘bootleg house’ leaves 1 dead & 6 injured, Bibb authorities say

One person was killed and six were injured during a shooting in a house being used as a liquor business front on Thursday morning in Macon, according to the Bibb County coroner and sheriff’s offices.

The house had been shut down for months after it was used to illegally sell alcohol in what county officials called a “bootleg house,” but recently reopened, Bibb County Sheriff David Davis said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

“You can almost call it a neighborhood pub,” Davis said. “When you have people that mix alcohol, guns and then some type of arguments, that’s when it can be dangerous — and in this case deadly.”

What happened

An argument reportedly broke out late Christmas night, then a person “seemingly indiscriminately” shot seven people, according to Davis.

“It seems that the quiet of the Christmas holiday was shattered by gunfire,” he said.

A shot spotter notification and a few 911 calls reported a shooting around 1 a.m. Thursday at a house on the 1000 block of Triple Hill Drive, according to a news release from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies responded and found three victims with gunshot wounds. Paramedics provided treatment at the scene, then took them to Atrium Health Navicent.

Four others were also shot. Three of them reportedly took personal vehicles to Atrium Health Navicent, and one took a personal vehicle to Piedmont Healthcare in Macon, according to Coroner Leon Jones.

One of the seven people — Jawasaiki Guyton, 34 — was pronounced dead from multiple gunshot wounds around 3 a.m. at Atrium, Jones said.

A 33-year-old man was listed in critical condition, the sheriff’s office said. The other five victims were in stable condition, deputies confirmed.

The liquor house

Jones knew the house as “a bootleg house ... where you sell beer and liquor in the house,” he told The Telegraph.

The sheriff’s office shut down the illegal business around February for a few months for illegally selling alcohol, but it reopened in the past few days or weeks, Davis said at a press conference.

“It’s kind of like playing whack-a-mole,” he said. “We’ll catch them one place and then they’ll move to another.”

It was one of a few houses on Triple Hill Drive that had been investigated as an illegal liquor house, he said.

Ultimately, a house owner could be at fault for illegal alcohol sales at their property, whether they knew of the tenants’ actions or not, according to Davis.

Another homicide had occurred at the same house during a separate incident earlier in 2024.

The sheriff’s office was still investigating what led to the shooting.

Deputies urged anyone with related information to call the sheriff’s office at 478-751-7500, or Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.

This story was originally published December 26, 2024 at 9:30 AM.