Glynn County Detention Center/AP

De'Marquise Elkins, 17, one of two teenagers arrested last Friday and accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll in Brunswick, Ga.

Investigators in Georgia have discovered a handgun submerged in a marsh, a week after a baby was shot to death in the small coastal town.

The handgun was found in a pond off a highway, 2.3 miles away from the crime scene in Brunswick, Ga., Brunswick police spokesman Todd Rhodes said Thursday. No weapon had been found up until this point.

Two teen suspects were arrested last weekend in the case, a day after 13-month-old Antonio Santiago was killed and his mother was shot in the leg.

The handgun was sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Crime Lab for analysis. Police did not provide a description of the weapon.

Also Thursday, police announced they arrested the sister of De'Marquise Elkins, the older of the two suspects in custody.

Sabrina Elkins, De'Marquis Elkins' 19-year-old sister, is the third relative of his to be held in custody in connection with the investigation. Sabrina Elkins was taken into custody on a bench warrant for tampering with evidence, police said.

On Tuesday, Elkins' mother and aunt were arrested on charges of making false statements to police and concealing facts or providing fraudulent documents in matters of government.

Elkins, 17, and his co-defendant, 15-year-old Dominique Lang, have both been charged as adults. Authorities were still unclear about a possible motive for the alleged crime; police said Thursday in a press release that they believed "it appears at this time that the incident was a random act."

The only eyewitness to the shooting was baby Antonio's mother, Sherry West. West said she was walking Antonio in his stroller when two teens came up to her demanding money. When she told them she didn't have any cash on her, the older one pointed a handgun at her, she said.

"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 Elkins and Lang's relatives have denied to local media that either of them could have committed the crime. West picked the alleged gunman out of a photo lineup of 24 mugshots, and insists Elkins is the killer.

Before Elkins' first court appearance on Monday, public defender Kevin Gough, who represents him, told The Associated Press, "My client is absolutely, 1,000 percent not guilty."

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The mother and aunt of a teenager charged in the death of a Georgia baby were arrested Tuesday for allegedly lying to investigators, police said.

The arrests came the morning after 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins' first court appearance on murder charges in connection with the fatal shooting of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago. Santiago was in a stroller on a walk with his mother, Sherry West, in the coastal town of Brunswick on Thursday when the shooting occurred. West was also shot.

Karimah Aisha Elkins, 36, and Katrina Latrelle Elkins, 33, were booked on charges of making false statements to police and concealing facts or providing fraudulent documents in matters of government, Glynn County police said.

According to FirstCoastNews.com in Georgia, Karimah Elkins is De'Marquise's mother; Katrina Elkins is his aunt. The station said the pair was arrested at 6:40 a.m. on Tuesday. Karimah Elkins posted bond of $1,104 at about 8 a.m., but Katrina Elkins was held in custody for a probation violation hold in neighboring Henry County.

De’Marquise Elkins and 15-year-old Dominique Lang, are both charged as adults in the fatal shooting, which West told police started when the two suspects demanded money. When West told them she didn't have any cash on her, she said the older teen, Elkins, pointed a handgun at her.

Glynn County Police Department

De'Marquise Elkins, age 17.

"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."

West, the only eyewitness to the shooting, also received a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg, police said.

Elkins' aunt told FirstCoastNews.com over the weekend that she was with her nephew on the morning of the shooting, which happened at about 9 a.m.

"Marquise was with me. At 8 o'clock that morning. At 8:15, De'Marquise, was at my residence," she told the station, adding that she was with him until about 11:30 a.m. "At 12 o'clock, Marquise was signed into adult education. He was not at that crime scene. How can he be two places at one time?  That's not true. There ain't no way."

A few hours later, she said, she picked him up. "It was a normal day. He wasn't nervous or nothing."

West says she picked the gunman out of a photo lineup of 24 mugshots, and insists Elkins is the killer.

Before Elkins' first court appearance on Monday, public defender Kevin Gough, who represents him, told The Associated Press, "My client is absolutely, 1,000-percent not guilty."

Elkins did not enter a plea.

Lang, the other suspect, was in eighth grade before his arrest, The Associated Press reported. His grandmother told WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., that Lang doesn't even know Elkins and could not have been a part of a killing of a child.

"My grandbaby ain't like that. He a baby, but he's not a baby killer," Verdell Hunter told WJXT-TV. "So they need to get that straight. He's not a baby killer."

Glynn County Detention Center/AP

De'Marquise Elkins, 17, is accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll in Brunswick, Ga.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- An anonymous tip led to arrests in the shooting death of baby who was killed in a stroller, police said on Sunday.

The Brunswick Police Department said that they received a tip that someone was crouched in the back seat of a vehicle as it drove away from the shooting on Thursday.

The Glynn County detective's division spent hours following up on the tip and eventually arrested a 14-year-old suspect. The boy's statements led them to take 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins into custody.

Elkins is charged with murder in the death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago. The baby's mother, Sherry West, said she was walking home when Elkins and a younger boy approached and asked her for money.

Elkins' family says he did not shoot the baby.

The Associated Press

Georgia Lottery Corp.

Georgia Lottery President and CEO Debbie D. Alford stands with $1 million Powerball winners James Scoles of North Pole, Alaska; Kenneth Wilson and Sanford Watson of Macon.

All for one, and $1 million for all.

Three long-time chums who made a pact to split the pot if one of them ever won the lottery got their payday last week, Georgia Lottery officials announced on Thursday.

And to top it all, the threesome’s windfall was foretold by an after-dinner treat.

James Scoles, 56, was cracking a fortune cookie in his town of North Pole, Alaska, on March 15, the same day his buddy Kenneth Wilson bought a lottery ticket at a grocery in Twiggs County, Ga.

His fortune? “It said, ‘You’re going to win the lottery,’” Scoles told lottery officials, according to a press release put out Thursday.

Whether that prophecy influenced what happened the next day in the Peach State could not be independently confirmed by NBC News.

But on March 16, Wilson could barely believe his eyes when his numbers came up: 3-7-21-44-53. He didn’t hit the Powerball number, but still managed to lock down a cool million.

Wilson will be splitting it three ways with Scoles and his cousin, Sanford Watson, who also lives in Macon.

“I was just as tickled for them as I was for myself,” Wilson told NBC News. “We just had a verbal agreement and I felt like that had to be honored.”

Wilson had to wait about a week before collecting his loot, however, as he waited for Scoles to fly in from Alaska.

“It was a lot of sleepless nights,” said his wife Dorothy Wilson. “I never would have thought winning money would have been that stressful.”

Scoles said at a press conference on Thursday that he plans to spend some of his share on a “Georgia honey baked ham, and a smoked turkey, and some good barbecue sauce.” Wilson, who is retired, says his only plans right now are to pay off some bills.

Terry Dickson / The Morning News via AP

Authorities investigate the scene of shooting in Brunswick, Ga., on Thursday.

Two teenage suspects were arrested in a small coastal Georgia city a day after a baby was killed and his mom shot, authorities said Friday.

The mother, Sherry West, told FOX affiliate WAWS-TV that she was pushing her 13-month-old son, Antonio, in his stroller in Brunswick, Ga., Thursday morning, when two boys – described as about 10 and 15 years old – came up, demanded money and shot them.

Brunswick police announced Friday afternoon that they had arrested a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old, and that they were charging them with murder. The arrests came after SWAT teams had gone door to door, searching for clues, and police had checked local school attendance and absentee lists to see if there were any students who hadn't been at school that fit the description of the suspects.

West told WAWS-TV that the older boy pointed a handgun at her during the encounter Thursday.

"He said, 'I'm gonna kill you if you don't give me your money,' and I said, 'I swear I don't have any,'" she told WAWS-TV of the encounter. 

She said they wouldn't accept no for an answer.

"He says, 'Well, I'm gonna kill your baby,'" she told WAWS-TV, crying. "I put my arms over my baby and he shoves me. And then he shot my baby right in the head." 

Glynn County Police Department

De'Marquise Kareem Elkins, 17.

West was shot in the leg, according to local reports. Brunswick police spokesman Todd Rhodes confirmed she received a non-life-threatening gunshot wound from a handgun.

Brunswick police identified the 17-year-old suspect as De'Marquise Kareem Elkins. The 14-year-old's identity, since he is a juvenile, was not made public; under Georgia law, 17 is considered an adult.

West was the only eyewitness to the crime, Rhodes said. Residents in the area reported hearing gunshots, but didn't see anything, he said. 

"We're not leaving any stone unturned," he said earlier in the day.

In a news conference Friday afternoon, Brunswick police chief Tobe Brown said, "We're still following leads from our witnesses. We're still collecting evidence. ... We're currently serving search warrants at three locations within the city." 

Police hadn't located a weapon yet.

The baby's father, Louis Santiago, said to WAWS-TV, "Why? Why my little one? You know? You feel they could have just taken the pocketbook and go."

Brunswick is about 80 miles south of Savannah.

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 22, 2013 9:56 AM EDT

A Georgia mother says her infant son is alive today because of two neighborhood boys, ages 9 and 10, who showed her how to perform CPR when the 12-week-old baby suddenly stopped breathing. 

Susanna Rohm, who lives in Marietta, told NBC affiliate WXIA in Atlanta she noticed something was “off” about her young son, Isaiah, on the frightening day last week. The boy had stopped responding to her and gone limp; when Rohm put her finger under his nose, she realized he wasn’t breathing.

She ran outside and yelled for someone to call 911, and two boys who were playing football, 9-year-old Rocky Hurt and 10-year-old Ethan Wilson, rushed to help her. Rohm says she was panicking, splashing water on the baby’s face and trying to do CPR.

The boys stopped her.

“I told her to push on the baby’s chest five to 10 times with only two fingers, tilt back the baby’s head, plug the baby’s nose and breathe into the baby’s mouth,” Rocky told WXIA.

Rohm says the boy said it so confidently that she listened to him right away. Within seconds, the baby began screaming.

“I told her that’s a good sign because the baby’s breathing,” Rocky said.

Paramedics arrived a short time later. Rohm told another Atlanta TV station, WAGA, that the baby spent two nights in the hospital, was diagnosed with sleep apnea and is being watched by doctors.

According to WAGA, the scare happened last Monday.

Rohm said she had never met the boys before, who live near her in Marietta, which is outside of Atlanta.

The boys say they learned CPR from posters in the cafeteria at their school, Sedalia Park Elementary.

“We just wanted to know just in case it happened,” Ethan said, “but we never knew that we’d have to do that.”

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:57 AM EDT

South Dakota school districts could arm teachers under a bill introduced after the Connecticut school shooting rampage and signed into law on Friday.

The bill came a day after Georgia lawmakers advanced legislation to end a ban on firearms in bars, churches and college classrooms.

The "school sentinels" law signed by South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard, a Republican, allows the state's 152 school districts to decide whether they want to arm teachers, other employees, hired security guards or volunteers.

School boards must get approval for their program from local law enforcement officials, and sentinels would have to pass a training program to carry weapons in the schools. District residents could put the issue to a voter referendum.

The law in South Dakota and the proposal in Georgia are two moves by state legislatures that aim to expand gun rights at a time when other state and federal leaders consider new limits following the December killing of 26 children and adults at an elementary school in Connecticut.

In Georgia, the Republican-led state House voted 117-56 on Thursday to advance the measure to restore gun carry rights that have been chipped away over the years, said one sponsor, state Representative John Meadows, a Republican.

The Georgia legislation also would allow licensed gun owners to take weapons inside some unsecured government buildings where they are currently banned, starting on July 1. They would still be outlawed from college dormitories and sporting events, Meadows said on Friday.

The bill does not specify or make any exemptions on the types of weapons and applies to all legal guns, Meadows said.

Angry students with guns?
Democratic state Representative Karla Drenner, who opposed the measure, said it was part of a backlash against a national push to strengthen gun control laws after the Connecticut killings.

Drenner, an instructor at several colleges, said she was concerned about the impact on potential confrontations with angry students, recalling on Friday how a student once screamed at her for mispronouncing his name.

"If he had a gun, the outcome could have been much different," Drenner said.

Asked about Drenner's concerns, Meadows said, "She ought to be armed."

The measure next moves to the Georgia state Senate for consideration. Meadows predicted it would pass, based on the response he said he had received from senators.

Senate President Pro Tem David Shafer, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday the bill would be assigned to a Senate committee next week.

"The Senate passed strong pro-Second Amendment legislation of its own, and I am confident that we will reach agreement with the House," Shafer said.

Any measure advanced from the legislature would go to Republican Governor Nathan Deal for his signature.

On Friday, Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said the governor agreed with language in the proposal that would make it harder for the mentally ill to obtain licenses to carry concealed weapons. He declined to say whether Deal supports other parts of the proposal.

Related:

Guns already allowed in schools with little restriction in many states

Report: School employee accidentally shot during concealed weapons class

After Newtown, states slow to embrace new gun laws

A small plane crashed near Thomson-McDuffie regional airport, about 25 miles west of Augusta, Ga., killing five people, WXIA-TV reported Wednesday night.

McDuffie County Fire Chief Bruce Tanner told WXIA that there were seven on board. The pilot was one of the two survivors, Tanner said.

Tanner told WXIA that the plane was trying to land at Thomson-McDuffie airport, overshot the runway and crashed in the woods about a mile east of the airport.

The flight departed from Nashville just before 6:30 p.m., Nashville station WSMV-TV reported, citing  FlightAware. The plane is listed as belonging to Pavilion Group, LLC, of Delaware, according to WSMV.

In 1982, Kennesaw, Georgia passed a law requiring each head of household to keep and maintain a firearm.

The law has never been enforced but opponents of increased gun control see the town's low crime rate as a positive result of the law. MSNBC's Craig Melvin reports.