In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, September 27, 2025, a vehicle that had left the pavement on Highway 301 South in Sylvania, Georgia, was found to contain two men who had been shot. Leon Donell Tolbert Jr., 30, was inside the car and was pronounced dead at the scene. A second occupant, 30-year-old Brandon Counts, was alive when responders arrived at about 3:15 a.m. but died after being taken to a nearby hospital.

The Georgia State Patrol concluded the vehicle had not been in a crash but had driven off the road. Investigators recovered a handgun inside the car and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the probe; both bodies were sent to the GBI Crime Lab in Pooler for autopsy. Authorities described the inquiry as active and asked the public for information. No arrests or suspects have been publicly announced.

Did anyone in the Sylvania area see anything on Highway 301 South that pre-dawn morning or have information about Tolbert or Counts’ movements that night?