In the early morning hours of March 31, 2022, 62-year-old Kenneth Ray Townsend was shot inside his apartment at 801 Selvidge Street in Dalton, Georgia. A 911 call at 2:51 a.m. led officers to find Townsend with gunshot wounds to his arm and chest; he was taken to Hamilton Medical Center and died shortly after arrival. Before he died, Townsend identified his shooter as a Black man but gave no further details. Initial witness and scene information described a Black male in a black hooded sweatshirt fleeing the scene.

Investigators identified 19-year-old Gabriel Mekel Adams of Cohutta as a suspect, obtained arrest warrants on April 2, and located and arrested him in Chattanooga on April 7 with U.S. Marshals and Chattanooga police. Adams was charged with murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. Detectives later developed evidence that 21-year-old Kyera Deshae Betton had been with Adams during and after the shooting; warrants charging her with the same offenses were issued in January 2023 and she was arrested at the Dalton Police Services Center.

A Whitfield County jury found Gabriel Mekel Adams guilty in May 2023 of the murder and aggravated assault of Kenneth Townsend, the attempted murder of another person, and possession of a firearm during those crimes; the jury acquitted him of felony murder and a separate aggravated assault charge. Can anyone who knew Kenneth Townsend or who saw activity around 801 Selvidge Street on March 31, 2022, share information that might shed more light on that night?