The two bodies were discovered this year in front of the last house on a cul-de-sac in Columbus, Georgia. The women, close friends who worked together as billing specialists, had been shot dead.
Two days later, on March 9, a convicted sex offender was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in his home next door.
In the three months since, there have been no arrests and authorities in the city of about 200,000 have offered few details about the unsolved deaths of Juantonja Richmond, 52; Ronisha Anderson, 51; or Solomon Adams, 65.
Interviews and documents first reported by NBC News reveal conflicting accounts of key details of the investigation into the women’s deaths, including where one of the bodies was found and who may be responsible for the fatal shootings.
His relatives are frustrated by what they described as a lack of progress and poor communication from investigators.
“We need some justice,” said Richmond’s sister Danita Tate, 55. “We need some answers. I have no faith in the Columbus Police Department.”
Juantonja Richmond and Ronisha “Nikki” Anderson.Family poster
A spokeswoman for the Columbus Police Department, Brittany Santiago, said in a statement Friday that the department’s violent crimes unit is “working diligently to solve the case and, more importantly, bring closure to the families of the victims.” .
The department is awaiting results from a state law enforcement lab, the statement added.
The department did not respond to a request for additional comment.
For the Richmond family, the murder is especially painful: 14 years ago, Danita’s younger sister, Chiquita Tate, was brutally murdered in the family’s hometown of Baton Rouge. The husband of the rising criminal lawyer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after finding her stabbed dozens of times inside her office.
“These girls were making something of themselves,” said another sister, Robin Tate. “We have no one but us. That’s why it hurts so much.”
Is the neighbor connected to the deaths?
A possible motive for the killings is still unclear, as is a possible link between the fatal shootings of the friends and neighbor Solomon Adams. A coroner’s report obtained by NBC News shows Adams left several notes at his home suggesting he had been targeted by an “individual or members of a gang.”
The deputy coroner who wrote the report, Elizabeth Allison, said it was her belief that his death may have been self-inflicted. It was unclear if he was involved in the fatal shootings of Richmond and Anderson, he wrote.
In a brief phone call Friday, Allison declined to comment on the report, saying the coroner’s office should not have released it.
In a separate report shared with NBC News, an autopsy on Richmond that the coroner’s office provided to a representative of Richmond’s family appears to offer a more definitive conclusion: Richmond and Anderson “were believed to have been shot by an individual who was found dead at his residence after apparently shooting himself.”
The autopsy does not identify Adams by name, but his body was found in his bedroom after his estranged wife called 911 for a welfare check, according to the coroner’s report. He had been shot once in the left side of the head.
The houses where Juantonja Richmond, Ronisha Anderson and Solomon Adams were found dead.Google Maps
In an interview, Adams’ estranged wife, Arimentha Adams, offered another conflicting take: When she spoke to someone at the police department after her husband’s death, she said, they told her that “I had nothing to see with the two women.”
He could not remember who in the department he spoke to, but said he was given the information during a phone call. A department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
A day before her death, a man asked the ex to call the police
Arimentha Adams lives in Alabama, but said she was still legally married to Solomon Adams at the time of his death. The two met and married after being released from a Florida prison on child sex offense charges in 2007, according to the state’s sex offender registry.
They “grew apart” after more than a decade, she said, but still spoke on the phone after they moved to Georgia nearly two years ago.
During a phone call on March 8, the day after Anderson and Richmond were found dead, Solomon Adams told his wife to call police at 2 p.m. the next day, he said. Arimentha Adams said she didn’t ask why, he didn’t offer a reason and she didn’t do what he asked.
“We were separated,” he said. “I didn’t ask.”
It wasn’t until the next day, when she couldn’t reach him, that she called authorities, she said.
In her interview with NBC News, Arimentha Adams described her husband’s mood during Wednesday’s conversation as “good.” But in a phone call with the deputy coroner after Solomon Adams’ body was found, he described his behavior differently, according to the report.
“He seemed quite nervous,” says the report, which describes Arimentha Adams’ account of the phone call.
Arimentha Adams could not be reached for clarification.
The couple died minutes after starting at an unusual hour
The family says another mysterious detail of the murders came in a text message from Anderson to Richmond the night before their bodies were found. Richmond’s relatives gained access to the message after his death and provided it to NBC News.
Danita Tate said Richmond, a former Army sergeant and “bright light that lit up any room she walked into,” had moved to Georgia decades ago and became close friends with Anderson, a mother of three children known for her chocolate chip cookies and “opens”. door and full refrigerator,” he offered to “whoever needed it,” his family said in a statement.
Family members said the couple began working together as billing specialists for the Healing Minds Institute, a therapy practice established in 2020 by Anderson’s ex-husband, Xavier McCaskey, according to a filing in the secretary of state
They usually checked in together at the home where Anderson and McCaskey still lived, Anderson’s family said.
In the text message, Anderson told Richmond they would start work at 11:30 a.m. the next morning, a time that was remarkable, Danita Tate said, because it was more than an hour before they usually left. to work
In the message, Anderson does not say why Richmond had to work early. According to a brief statement from the Columbus Police Department Released on the day of his death, authorities were dispatched to the home at 11:35 a.m. after a report of a shooting.
Authorities offered conflicting accounts of where the bodies were found. Responding officers found them in the front yard, according to the police statement. But Richmond’s autopsy says she was found in a car.
Allison, the deputy coroner, referred a question about the discrepancy to the police department, which did not respond to a request for comment Friday night.
The women were pronounced dead at 12:15 p.m., according to the statement. Anderson was shot in the head, according to a death certificate provided by his family to NBC News. Richmond was shot twice — once in the neck and once in the chest, according to the autopsy.
“Why did they have to work early to do the billing?” Tate said. “Who knew Tonja would stop by at that time of the morning?”
A spokeswoman for the police department did not respond to a request for comment about the text message.
McCaskey did not respond to interview requests.
Willing to leave on his own
McCaskey, who has been described in the local media as a former gang member and ha he was part of a town planning commissionmarried Anderson in May 2021 after being together for years, according to Anderson’s family.
They separated eight months later and divorced last October over what the family described as “irreconcilable differences”.
Before Anderson’s death, the family said, she had found a new home and was preparing to move out of the house she shared with McCaskey.
In a local television report published last month, McCaskey is visibly upset on camera at the scene of the murders. Speaking to a station reporter, he discussed Solomon Adams’ criminal history and appeared to blame him for the fatal shootings.
The report did not provide evidence linking Solomon Adams to the murders and said it could not confirm McCaskey’s claim with the Columbus Police Department.
McCaskey did not respond to requests for comment.
In their statement, Anderson’s family said they were disappointed that there appeared to be few leads about the events of March 7, a day that will forever be “etched into the minds and nightmares of the Anderson family.” said the statement.
The family added that they hope that “shedding some light on this story will help bring those responsible for this heinous crime” to justice.
Then, the statement said, “our family can finally have peace.”
CORRECTION (June 20, 2023. 11:20 am ET): An earlier version of this article misstated Chiquita Tate’s relationship with Danita Tate. Chiquita was his younger sister, not his older sister.
