Report: Days Inn Shooting Suspects Just Wanted To Sleep

After they allegedly shot a man in the head in the course of a robbery at the Days Inn in Stone Mountain, all that three suspects wanted to do was sleep.

That’s according to the Uber driver who drove them all the way from Conyers and whose 911 calls led to their dramatic arrest at the Snellville home of 19-year-old accused shooter, Richard Anthony McKoy.

“I never seen nobody sleep like that in my natural life,” Shawn McCastle told the Gwinnett Daily Post. “When I got to Snellville, I tried to wake them up. I’m sitting there five, 10 minutes, I’m still trying to get them up.”

Police have identified McKoy as the gunman who shot 53-year-old Juan Casillas, a steel-company worker staying at the Days Inn while doing a job locally. The two other suspects were identified as Thomas Nikay Shatner, 21, of Lawrenceville, and Reggie Tequen Greene, 21, of Snellville.

All three are being held without bond at Gwinnett County Jail.

McCastle told the Daily Post the men made him nervous. He was worried they would carjack him and also believed they were intoxicated when he picked them up at a Waffle House in Conyers.

At first, they’d asked to go back to the Days Inn, on U.S. Highway 78. McCastle, who recorded the men on his cellphone while they slept, says he woke one of the suspects up when they arrived at the hotel. When the man saw police at the hotel, McCastle told the paper, he told the driver to leave -- first to a nearby Krystal restaurant, then to McKoy’s home in Snellville.

Somewhere along the way, McCastle called 911.

In a recording released by Gwinnett County Police, McCastle at first doesn’t speak and hangs up. A 911 operator called him back.

“I’m over here at the Krogers on 78,” McCastle then said to the operator, not elaborating.

Operator: “What’s going on over there? Sir, are you OK? What’s happening? What’s the emergency?”

“If I (knew) right now,” McCastle responded, “I would tell you.”

A series of calls went on that way for about 20 minutes, with McCastle discretely giving the operator hints as to his location.

When the 37-year-old’s Volvo arrived at McKoy’s address, police were ready and swarmed the residence. One suspect was apprehended immediately and the other two were chased down and caught soon afterward.

Police say the suspects had gotten to the Waffle House in Conyers in a Lexus they stole from one of their victims at the Day’s Inn.

One of the victims -- all employees of Ogeechee Steel Inc. out of North Carolina -- told police the gunmen knocked on his hotel-room door around 4:20 a.m. They showed a handgun, but then said “they weren’t looking for him” and proceeded to knock on the door of the room neighboring his.

That was the room where Casillas and another man were staying. The suspects took wallets, cash and ID cards, according to the warrants. They did the same in the next room, where a father and son were staying, and stole the son’s 1999 Lexus.

They then returned to Casillas’ room and shot him, police say.

McCastle told the Daily Report he has a master’s degree and a background in human resources, and that he’s currently pursuing a doctorate online.

He said he’s cut back on his Uber driving for now.

“Safety is more important than anything to me,” he said. “There needs to be some kind of safety features for the drivers.”