On the evening of December 11, 2018, 35-year-old Richard Jermaine Boatner was shot in the parking lot of the Cottis Inn on Martha Berry Boulevard in Rome, Georgia.

The Rome Police Department identified 18-year-old Cody Deangelo Thompson as a suspect based on witness statements and scene evidence and sought warrants charging him with murder and felony murder. A few days after the shooting, Thompson surrendered to authorities at the Floyd County Jail bonding lobby and was held there without bond on the murder charges. The initial report did not disclose what sparked the fistfight that preceded the shooting.

Did anyone in Rome know Boatner or have information about the altercation that turned deadly?