Report: Spiked Drink Allegation Led To Bartow Shootings

The sister of one of the victims in Tuesday’s Bartow County shooting rampage that left two people dead is speaking out about the incident.

Beth Thacker said her brother, who is now paralyzed, told her the incident started when suspect Austin Tyler, 20, allegedly said he spiked their drinks with a drug, according to WSB-TV.

“The kid was bragging about putting something in his drink, and he said something to him, and when he said something to him that’s when he lashed out on everybody,” she told the news station.

According to The Daily Tribune News, officials with the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office have ordered toxicology reports on Austin, whose actions left two people — including himself — dead and four people wounded.

Patch has repeatedly reached out to the sheriff’s office, but has not heard back. 

Around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Tyler shot three people — killing Royce Hobgood, 64, — at a home at 15 Brent Circle in unincorporated Cartesrville. Tyler then drove to a house on Milam Bridge Road where he shot and wounded another person. After that shooting, the suspect allegedly carjacked a man and his grandson near River Oaks and drove away in a silver pickup truck.

The suspect then led law enforcement authorities on a chase and shot himself in the head before the chase ended in a fiery crash, the newspaper reported.

Sheriff Clark Millsap also told the Tribune that two of the people who were shot were being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. One victim has been paralyzed after he was shot in the neck and another suffered a “double lung shot.”

(Photo credit: Screenshot from WSB-TV)