On Friday afternoon, November 16, 2018, 31-year-old Christian Brooke Joiner was fatally shot during an armed robbery at RJ Pope’s Traditional Men’s Wear in Vidalia, Georgia. An employee of a neighboring business reported hearing a gunshot around 1 p.m.; a customer then found Joiner with a gunshot wound to the head and called 911. She was taken to Meadows Hospital in Vidalia, where she was pronounced dead; the coroner sent her body to the state crime lab for autopsy.

The Vidalia Police Department, assisted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Patrol, and Toombs County Sheriff’s Office, used surveillance footage of poor quality in their inquiry. Authorities arrested 29-year-old Tyrone Burns of Vidalia on November 19, 2018, and charged him with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and armed robbery; he later pleaded guilty to felony murder and aggravated assault. Joiner’s mother, Cathy Brandenburg, filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the estate and Joiner’s minor son, naming the City of Vidalia and Central Florida Behavioral Health Network, Inc., and alleging negligence in supervision of Burns.

Did anyone in Vidalia know Brooke, her workplace, or have information about Burns’s interactions in the weeks before the shooting?