The latest
November 8, 2026, at 3 a.m. Central time (4 a.m. Eastern time).
An adult and three teenagers have been arrested and charged with murder in southwest Georgia in the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Austin Payne, whose mother discovered his body inside an abandoned apartment building after tracking his mobile phone, according to Fox News and the New York Post.
The Albany Police Department confirmed the arrest of 22-year-old Detravion Parker alongside three juveniles: 16-year-old Adarious Wallace, 15-year-old Jansquincey Donaldson, and 15-year-old Omari Marion. All four individuals were taken into custody following a multi-day investigation by city homicide detectives and booked on felony murder charges.
Under Georgia state law, Parker was booked into the Dougherty County Jail without bond, while the three teenagers were placed in regional youth detention facilities pending initial court appearances.
A mother's desperate search on Cameo Lane
The tragic sequence of events began on the evening of Halloween, October 31, when Payne went to a vacant apartment complex on the 800 block of Cameo Lane in Albany alongside a group of acquaintances, CBS News reported.
At approximately 8:03 p.m., the teenager placed a brief and panicked phone call to his mother, telling her that he had been shot and desperately needed help before the connection abruptly cut off. When repeated calls to his phone went straight to voicemail and he failed to return home, his mother launched a search across the neighborhood.
The following morning, November 1, she used a mobile tracking application to locate her son’s phone signal. The digital coordinates directed her to a boarded-up, vacant apartment building at 800 Cameo Lane, Apartment B. Upon entering the unlocked unit, she discovered her son lying unresponsive on the floor with fatal gunshot wounds.
Emergency medical personnel and Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler responded to the scene, where Payne was pronounced dead.
Surveillance footage and police investigation
Albany Police Department homicide detectives launched an intensive investigation, canvassing the surrounding neighborhood, retrieving digital data from mobile networks, and reviewing residential and commercial security camera recordings from Cameo Lane and adjacent streets.
Investigators determined that an altercation had erupted inside the abandoned property shortly after 8 p.m. on Halloween night. While police officials have not publicly released a specific motive for the gunfire, evidence gathered at the scene and witness statements led detectives to identify Parker, Wallace, Donaldson, and Marion as active participants in the incident.
Charges of felony murder and aggravated assault were filed against all four suspects as the Dougherty County District Attorney’s Office prepares the case for a grand jury review.
