Police investigate weekend shootings
By Elizabeth Billips Associate Editor

Stray bullets ripped through four Magnolia Acres apartments in Waynesboro last weekend, piercing one man in the chest and grazing a bystander.

The shootings occurred just one hour after an unrelated argument on Mamie Joe Lane that resulted in one gun shot wound.

Police were called to Magnolia Acres just after midnight Saturday when reports of gunfire were called in by residents.

They found Jermaine Daughtry, 20, sitting on the couch in an apartment "grasping his chest."

He told officers he heard gunfire outside and was shot when he opened the window shade to look out.

Another bullet grazed Travis Walker, 25, who was standing outside an apartment.

According to the police report, he got down on the ground when he heard shots but was hit in the lower back.

Police investigator Bobbie Jockel said a mother and four children had been living in one of the four apartments that was shot into, but they had just moved so it could be renovated.

A bullet went through the window of the recently emptied apartment and ricocheted from wall to wall through the length of it. "They were extremely fortunate," she said.

About an hour earlier, Burke County deputies had been called to Mamie Joe Lane, about three miles outside Waynesboro, off Highway 56 North.

According to the incident report, a resident called when a large crowd began arguing across the street and a bullet hit her mobile home.

The officer reported finding a bullet hole in the front of the trailer and its exit hole in the back.

Rodrick Chance, 22, called deputies several hours later to report that he was injured during that argument. He was apparently grazed on the hand by a bullet.

No arrests have been made, and city and county officers say the two incidents are not related.