Crime & Safety

Updated: Two Found Dead at Grayson Church

Gwinnett County police confirm an 85-year-old woman and an 81-year-old man were found dead Sunday morning in an apparent murder-suicide.

Updated Oct. 24 at 1:40 p.m. 

Two Gwinnett residents in their 80s were involved in what appears to be murder-suicide Sunday morning in Grayson. Gwinnett Police have now confirmed that 85-year-old Avis M. Whitley and 81-year-old Clarence Porter were found dead from gunshot wounds in a car in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church in Grayson. 

The two are brother and sister, according to a Gwinnett County Police release. They lived together in Loganville, police said. 

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Gwinnett County police officers responded to a call about 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 23. They found the two people, deceased, in a white 1996 Mercury Villager van in the parking lot of the church. 

"The homicide investigators determined that this was a murder-suicide perpetrated by Mr. Porter by shooting Ms. Whitely in the head and then turned the gun on himself inside the van," said Cpl. Edwin Ritter of the Gwinnett County Police Dept. in a release. 

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The investigators learned that Ms. Whitley had recently suffered a stroke and was not in good health, but the motive for the murder is unknown. 


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