Assistant principal charged in torture and killing of 3 people in 2013, Georgia cops say
A middle school assistant principal in Alabama and three other men have been charged with murder in connection with the torture and killing of three people in 2013, Georgia deputies said.
Keante Harris is an assistant principal at McAdory Middle School in the Birmingham area.
“At this time we still are gathering facts about the specifics of this situation,” Jefferson County Schools superintendent Walter Gonsoulin said in a statement to McClatchy News. “However, early indications are that the charges are not related to this individual’s employment with Jefferson County Schools. Per standard procedure, Mr. Harris has been placed on paid administrative leave. As more facts become available, we will act according to our district’s policy.”
Keante Harris faces three charges of malice murder, alongside Kevin Harris, Darrell Harris and Kenneth Thompson, the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office said May 10 in a news release.
Deputies said that in January 2013, the men lured three victims to a location in Jonesboro, outside Atlanta, and forced them into a home at gunpoint.
The men abused and killed the three people, then they put them in a Dodge Charger and ditched the car on the side of Interstate 85 in a nearby county, officials said.
Police reported they spotted the car Jan. 13, 2013, and found three bodies inside.
“It was determined through the investigation that all three victims were tortured and murdered in Clayton County and dumped in Fulton County,” Clayton County Sheriff Levon Allen said in the news release.
The victims were identified as Cheryl Colquitt-Thompson, Quinones King and Rodney Cottrell, WSFA reported.
King and Cottrell were found in the backseat, dead from asphyxiation, and Colquitt-Thompson was found in the trunk, officials told WSFA.
A Georgia medical examiner found she died from strangulation, according to FOX5.
Colquitt-Thompson’s sister told the Montgomery Advertiser in 2018 that her sister’s death would not be forgotten.
“We’re not going to be on the back burner. We’re not going to let this rest,” Lakita Lewis said. “There have got to be some sick people in this world. How can you take three lives and sleep at night? But what’s done in the darkness will come back to life.”
The men were taken into custody in three different states without incident, Allen said. None of the men have attorney information available in Clayton County court records.