On Saturday afternoon in rural Elbert County, Georgia, a routine 911 call reporting a man shot set off a tragic chain of events — culminating in two deaths and one person wounded.
Deputies first arrived shortly before 4 p.m. near Pleasant Hill Road and Martin Villa Drive (just north of the city of Elberton, Georgia), where they found a man with a gunshot wound. He was rushed to Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital for treatment. According to investigators, the man identified his assailant as 31‑year‑old Moriah Lane Mills of Elberton. Mills fled the scene.
As deputies and emergency services searched the surrounding area for Mills, dispatchers flagged a second incident nearby on Pulliam Mill Road. Responders discovered a crashed vehicle and, in a yard nearby, a woman matching the suspect’s description — again identified as Mills — holding a handgun. When officers reportedly ordered her to drop the weapon, she instead shot and killed herself. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Inside the crashed vehicle, authorities found the body of a second victim, later identified as 62‑year‑old Refugio O. Torres, also of Elberton. The county coroner’s office determined Torres had died from a gunshot wound. Both bodies — Mills’s and Torres’s — were transported to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsies.
Meanwhile, the man taken to hospital remained listed as a shooting victim but his name has not been released. The GBI, working with the local sheriff’s office and coroner’s team, has opened a thorough investigation to determine what sparked the shooting and what ties, if any, existed among the three people involved.
Authorities said there was no indication of an ongoing threat to the public — but they called the community’s help essential. Anyone with information is urged to contact the GBI’s regional investigative office in Athens or submit anonymous tips via the agency’s tip line.
As the investigation continues, many in Elbert County remain shaken by how a midday shooting call evolved into a fatal crash and double death — a sobering reminder of how fast ordinary moments can turn tragic.
