Courtesy Marshiela Bush-Rhodes

Rebecca Foley, 21, was shot and killed while driving her car near her Savannah, Ga. apartment on Jan. 21, 2013. The case remains unsolved.

It's been four months since a hard-working Georgia college student named Rebecca Foley was shot to death in her prized red Volkswagen Beetle as she drove up to her well-manicured condo development.

The case was front-page news in Savannah, and Foley's death was highlighted in an NBC News investigation of gun deaths across the country over the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in January.

The attention did not help police crack the case, though, and now Foley's family has jacked up a reward in hopes of shaking loose some leads.

"Somebody, somewhere knows something," said the victim's father, Eddie Foley, who added $10,000 to the reward money for information leading to an arrest and conviction. "I don't want it to become a cold case and I feel like that's what it's becoming."

On the evening of Jan. 21, his 21-year-old daughter was found slumped over her steering wheel, dead from a single bullet that left a hole in the rear window. She had just gotten her nails done and planned to meet a friend at home.

Those who knew Foley described her as a striver with a bright future, a pretty young woman who juggled several jobs to put herself through college and hoped to go into the insurance industry.

Her family thought she must have been the victim of mistaken identity, a gang shootout, or a robbery gone wrong. They assumed a witness or a suspect would soon surface, but weeks have turned to months with no arrest.

Foley's parents, who are divorced, made a public appeal with police in March. Her father traveled from his home in Gastonia, N.C., to Savannah last weekend to spend two days papering the city with fliers.

The Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department said there is no progress to report.

"There's no closure. We're not able to move on," said Foley's mother, Jennifer, who considered and then decided against hiring a private investigator.

She said she has joined a bereavement group and is seeing a therapist, her grief compounded by uncertainty.

"I feel this incredible, overwhelming sense of helplessness. It feels like nobody cares," she said.

O.C. Welch cares. The Savannah-based car dealer, who has offered rewards in several other unsolved homicides, kicked in $2,500 for the Foley investigation. Along with the standard $2,500 offered by Crimestoppers, that brings the total to $12,500.

"Never met 'em," Welch said of the Foleys. "Don't need to know 'em. Just trying to help. Ain't that what you're supposed to do?"

Eddie Foley said he's hopeful the cash will yield some clues — and some peace of mind.

"I can't bring my daughter back, but it's very important we bring justice and get this person locked up," he said.

Almost half a century after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination in schools and other public places, black and white students in Georgia's rural Wilcox County danced together for the first time at prom over the weekend.

"I feel like we are living Martin Luther King's dream," NBC station WMGT 41 quoted student Alexis Miller as saying. Miller, who is white, attended Saturday's event with her black boyfriend.

WMGT reported:

Racially segregated proms have been held in Wilcox County almost every year since the schools integrated in the 1970s. In a long-standing tradition, parents raised money to host separate dances, the community referred to one as the "black prom" and the other as the "white prom." Traditionally, most students were welcome to the "black prom" but an unwritten rule kept students of different races from attending the "white prom." 

Wilcox County High School was quick to point out on its website that it hasn’t organized or hosted the segregated proms that have been traditional. It called the events “private parties” over which it “has no influence.”

Additionally, the school hosts an integrated dance called the Military Ball and says it will discuss making next year’s prom an inclusive, official school event.

However, the NAACP has put the onus on Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, starting a petition calling on him to “put an end to segregated proms, homecomings, and other school related social events.”

But perhaps nothing had as much impact as a Facebook page started by the small group of students who organized the integrated prom.

As of Monday, with the prom finished, the page, carrying the banner “Love Has No Color” had almost 30,000 “likes.”

So many donors came forward – from as far away as Australia -- that the students say they have money left over to help local families in need. And the publicity brought in DJs from Atlanta and Texas to provide the music.

The students’ appeal was simple and from the heart:

“We live in rural south Georgia, where not too many things change,” the page says. “Well, as a group of adamant high school seniors, we want to make a difference in our community. For the first time in the history of our county, we plan to have an integrated prom.”

On its website, Wilcox County Schools praised the efforts of the student organizers, saying they were seeking "to right the wrongs of the past."

A mother, two of her daughters and two other children died early Saturday in a house fire outside Atlanta, authorities said. The only survivor was an 11-year-old girl who escaped after the mother woke her up and told her to run.

Firefighters were called just after 1 a.m. to the house, in the suburb of Newnan. The state fire marshal’s office ruled that it was an electrical fire and an accident.

The fire killed Alanna McCrary and two of her daughters, Eriel, 5, and Nikia, 2, Newnan police said in a statement. NBC affiliate WXIA reported that the mother was 28. The two other children killed were Messiah White, 3, and McKenzie Florence, 1, police said.

The surviving child was identified by local media as Nautica McCrary, nicknamed Molly.

David Tulis / AP

Sisters Brandy McCrary, left, and Breona Montgomery, who are cousins of the five fatal house fire victims, share a hug with neighbors Bonita Beasley, center, and Jennifer Moss, right.

“The mother woke her up and told her to run,” Police Chief Buster Meadows told The Associated Press. “There was someone outside who she ran to, and the mother went back after the others. Neither her nor the other four children made it out.”

Investigators believe a faulty breaker in the electrical panel of the house started the fire, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Firefighters found the charred remains of a smoke detector, but it was unclear whether it had worked, a spokesman for the state insurance commissioner told the AP.

Neighbors left balloons, candles, teddy bears, a small cross and two bicycles beside the mailbox later Saturday, and someone spray-painted a Bible verse on a blanket and left it there, the AP reported.

This story was originally published on Sat Apr 27, 2013 5:07 PM EDT

A gunman who was holding four firefighters hostage outside of Atlanta was killed during a tactical operation, police said Wednesday.

Following a standoff, the Gwinnett County Police Department SWAT team entered the residence where a barricaded gunman was holding four firefighters hostage in Suwanee, Ga.

The gunman had taken five firefighters hostage but allowed one of them to leave to move the fire truck, police said.

As officers entered the home, a small explosion could be heard. Officials later said it was used to distract the suspect. The sound of gunfire followed.

One officer suffered a non life-threatening injury in the exchange, and the four firefighters have "superficial wounds," Gwinnett County Police Cpl. Edwin Ritter said. It is believed the suspect was killed by gunfire, he said.

The firefighters responded to a medical call with one fire truck and an ambulance around 3:41 p.m., police said. They came from a nearby station, officials said, and they were trained as both emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

NBC station WXIA reported that the house where the firefighters were being held hostage was foreclosed on in November and is currently bank-owned.

Ritter said that once the firefighters were taken hostage, the suspect demanded his power, cable and cell phone be turned on.

Suwanee is a suburban community about 35 miles northeast of Atlanta.

John Bazemore / AP

A police officer clears a path for an ambulance after an explosion and gunshots were heard near the scene where a man was holding four firefighters hostage in Suwanee, Ga., on Wednesday.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 5:25 PM EDT

A mother from Georgia just found out that she was saved by her 11-year-old son after a perilous car crash — as he crawled out of a broken window and climbed up a steep 13-foot embankment to get her help.

“He is amazing,” Lisa Polk, who has no recollection of the accident, told NBC affiliate WXIA in Cummings, Ga., on Tuesday. “He is one of a kind.”

Polk was driving her son Charlie to his brother’s soccer game on March 27, when her jeep went down a steep embankment and landed on its roof in a creek.

"I don't remember going off the road, I don't remember being in a helicopter, nothing," Polk said.

“I tried to look for a hole and I crawled out,” Charlie told the station. “When I looked down I saw my legs had a bunch of blood all over them and I crawled and got help.”

A passerby heard the boy’s call for help and held Polk’s head above water until rescuers showed up. She was transported by helicopter to a nearby hospital, suffering from several broken bones.

“I would have drowned. I was completely under the water,” the proud mother said.

Polk didn’t know Charlie had saved her life until days later.

“For him to do that and just be 11 years old,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He is awesome.”

During his first day at school, Charlie was praised as a hero.

“People are saying I’m a celebrity at my school,” he said. “At least no one is picking on me.”

Asked who his heroes are, Charlie replied, "my dad and my mom."

A 13-year-old Georgia boy who hanged himself after reportedly being bullied at school was remembered by family and friends as a hero at his funeral this week.

Devin Brown moved to Columbus, Ga., six months ago to live with his father, who says the bullying began shortly after Devin started at his new middle school, according to NBC affiliate WLTZ-TV in Georgia.

"He got jumped, or somebody beat him up," Ray Brown, Devin's father, told WLTZ. "He came home one time and had some peanut butter pies he had made for school. When he walked through the door he had some pie left, and he had it all over him. Someone had jumped on him and smeared it all over him."

Brown voiced his concerns to Rothschild Middle School, but officials told him they hadn't heard of any issues, he said.

"They just kind of let it go," Brown said. 

It wasn't until last Thursday night that Devin's family realized how far the bullying had gone.

"I hear [my stepmother yelling,] 'Oh my God, Ray, Ray, help me! I can't get him down, he hung himself,'" Cara Downs, Devin's older sister, told WLTZ. "I could see the black and blue around his neck and I tried to find a pulse, but couldn't find it."

Brown believes being called a "snitch" at school pushed Devin over the edge. He told WLTZ that the day Devin took his life, he saw another student carrying a knife and threatening a teacher. Brown said Devin told his teacher about the knife; the other student was given disciplinary action.

"He said, 'Everyone is calling me a snitch,'" Brown said. "He said, 'There's about 15-20 people who want to jump on me.'"

Rothschild Middle School Principal Reginald Williamson denied Brown's account of his son's school experiences.

"We have received no information on him being bullying whatsoever," he said. "We log all information as far as bullying is concerned."

He also said there was never any threat to a teacher. 

"We did have a knife incident that occurred. It happened before school started. The knife was retrieved," he said. But no threat was ever issued against a teacher during the incident, he said. 

Muscogee County School District's director of communications also confirmed the incident.

"It was discovered upon search in the student's locker. And of course any student discipline, while I can't talk about particular student discipline, was handled according to policy," Valerie Fuller said. 

At his funeral on Wednesday, a large wooden box with the word "hero" carved on it was set up. Devin's friends dropped notes into it, thanking him for speaking up about the threat he saw at school, reported WLTZ.

"I made this for him because he is my hero. He did the right thing and he knew he did the right thing," Brown told the affiliate.

On Devin's gravestone, the inscription read: "You left too soon, but forever wouldn't have been long enough. Our hero - Devin Brown."

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 5, 2013 12:49 PM EDT

David Goldman/AP

Atlanta Public Schools defendant Sandra Ward, right, turns herself in at the Fulton County Jail accompanied by her attorney Robbin Shipp on April 2 in Atlanta.

Former educators indicted in a cheating scandal that has rocked Atlanta's public school system began turning themselves in to authorities on Tuesday, ahead of a deadline to surrender voluntarily.

At least three of the 35 former Atlanta public school educators indicted by a grand jury last week had reported to the Fulton County jail by mid-morning, according to jail records.

They face charges including racketeering and making false statements for allegedly conspiring to alter and improve standardized test scores to obtain cash bonuses, according to prosecutors.

Former Atlanta School Superintendent Beverly Hall was among the former teachers, principals and administrators named in the 65-count indictment returned on Friday. She was not among the first defendants who turned themselves in.

All of the defendants have been given a Tuesday deadline by the Fulton County district attorney's office to surrender or face arrest in their homes or workplaces.

Hall was named National Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators in 2009, the same year prosecutors contend widespread cheating took place.

She received a $78,000 bonus that year from the school system for improving its test scores, prosecutors said.

"The money she received, we are alleging, was ill gotten and it was theft," Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said at a news conference on Friday.

Related:

School cheating investigation puts Atlanta teachers, principals at center of scandal

A Georgia town has passed a law requiring its citizens to own a gun and ammunition — a measure one councilman says is similar to putting a security sign in your front yard to deter criminals.

The ordinance in the town of Nelson, population 1,300, contains no penalties, has exemptions for felons and the mentally ill and allows anyone to opt out. Town leaders said they wanted to make a point about gun rights.

The law requires the head of every household to own a gun and ammo to “provide for the emergency management of the city” and “provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants.”

The law is also meant to pre-empt any future attempt by the federal government to confiscate guns, according to the council’s agenda.

“Some people have security systems, some people don’t, but they put those signs up,” Councilman Duane Cronic said. “I really felt like this ordinance was a security sign for our city.”

Johnny Clark / AP

In a this image made from video, the Nelson, Ga., council meets Monday to vote on a mandatory gun ownership ordinance for all heads of household.

The ordinance passed 5-0 on Monday night and takes effect in 10 days. Nelson is about 50 miles north of Atlanta.

Heath Mitchell, the only police officer in town, said that Nelson is far from the two nearest sheriff’s offices, and that having a gun would help people protect themselves.

Lamar Kellett, who lives in Nelson and spoke against the law at a hearing Monday, said the town would never pass a speed limit and allow people to flout it. He said the ordinance was pointless.

“People who want a gun, they already have one probably,” he told WXIA, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta. “There’s been no violent crime in Nelson in the past 10 years. So how are you going to improve on no violent crime?”

The measure is modeled after a law adopted in 1982 by Kennesaw, another Atlanta suburb. Police there acknowledge that they haven’t tried to enforce it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 2, 2013 9:01 AM EDT

Glynn County Police Dept.

Brunswick City Commissioner James Henry Brooks, 59, was arrested on Thursday.

The commissioner of a town where a baby was shot to death was arrested Thursday, the sixth arrest since the small Georgia community was shaken by last week's attack.

Brunswick, Ga., city commissioner James Henry Brooks was charged with influencing a witness and willful obstruction of law enforcement officers in the investigation into 13-month-old Antonio Santiago's death, Glynn County Undersheriff Ron Corbett said.

Brooks, 59, was still in jail Friday because no bond had been set for the charge of influencing a witness, Corbett said. A bond of $1,256 was set on the other charge.

Antonio's mother, Sherry West, says she was on her morning walk last Friday when two teens came up to her and demanded money. When she told them she didn't have any cash, she says, the older teen shot Antonio in the head and her in the leg. Her injury was not life-threatening.

Brooks' charges stem from a Monday courthouse incident in which he allegedly tried to block a county investigator from speaking with the mother of De'Marquis Elkins, one of the suspects in the case, reported NBC affiliate WTLV.com. 

Brooks was also indicted on unrelated racketeering charges in neighboring Camden County earlier Thursday, The Florida Times-Union reported. He was charged with taking money and influencing others in the local government from 2009 to 2011, the paper reported.

 Corbett, the Glynn County undersheriff, confirmed Brooks was indicted, but couldn't confirm the details.

Authorities investigating baby Antonio's death arrested suspects Elkins, 17, and Dominique Lang, 15, last Friday. Over the course of this week, they also arrested Elkins' mother, aunt, and sister for tampering with evidence.

Elkins' sister, Sabrina, 19, and mother, Karimah, 36, are still in custody, without the possibility of bond. 

A handgun was discovered about two miles away from the crime scene, submerged a marsh, the Brunswick police spokesman said yesterday. On Friday, Corbett said that Elkins' mother, Karimah, who is still in custody, faces a second charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but said he couldn't elaborate on the charge.

The only eyewitness to the shooting was Antonio's mother. West said when she insisted she didn't have any money on her, the older of the two teens pointed a handgun at her. 

"He says, 'Well, I'm gonna kill your baby,'" West said last week. "I put my arms over my baby and he shoves me. And then he shot my baby right in the head."

Both teens have been charged as adults.

Related content:

• Police: Handgun found 2 miles from where Georgia baby shot dead
• Mother, aunt of Georgia baby murder suspect arrested, charged with lying
• Relative, lawyer defend Ga. teen baby-shooting suspects

A toddler was mauled to death after her family didn't notice she had gotten out of the house, and seven of their nine dogs attacked her in the backyard, Georgia authorities said.

Monica Renee Laminack, just 21 months old, crawled through the doggie door of her family's Ellabell, Ga., home on Wednesday evening and managed to slip out into the backyard, Debra Odom, Bryan County sheriff's office administrative secretary, said.

That's when the family's pet dogs — all pit bulls or pit bull mixes, according to Odom — seized on her.

"They started attacking the child, mauled her, drug her all over the yard, took her clothes off, scattered her clothes," Bryan County Sheriff Clyde Smith said in a news conference Thursday.

Emergency personnel arrived on the scene to find the girl covered in bite marks and were unable to revive her, reported WTOC.com in Georgia. 

“When we got here and spoke to EMS, they told us that when they got here, she was already cold. There was nothing they could do,” Bryan County Deputy Sheriff James Beatty told The Savannah Morning News.

Five people were home at around 6 p.m. when the mauling happened, according to WTOC.com, including Monica's 12-year-old brother, who was assigned to watch her, and their grandmother.

The grandmother, who was not identified, reportedly woke up to hear the dogs barking; she looked out her window and yelled "They are killing Monica!", reported WTOC.com. 

Bryan County Animal Control euthanized all seven of the dogs involved. An Irish settler and beagle that the family owned were spared, Odum said, adding authorities had never been responded to calls at the home before this.

An autopsy was being conducted on Thursday. No charges have been filed yet.

"It's still under investigation right now," Odum said.

It's unclear why the dogs became aggressive with the toddler, who would have turned 2 years old in June. 

 “She habitually played with dogs, all of them. But they drug her all over the yard. Something turned them on her. We don’t know what,” Smith said, reported The Savannah Morning News.