Former Georgia football player named as suspect, arrested in gas station shooting death
A former University of Georgia football player has been identified as the suspect in the March 19, 2021, slaying of RaceTrac station clerk Elijah Wood, Oconee County (Georgia) Sheriff James Hale announced Wednesday.
The sheriff identified the suspect as Akhil Crumpton of Philadelphia. The sheriff said Crumpton played football for UGA in 2017 and 2018 and was a student at UGA through 2021. Crumpton's UGA football profile reported that he was a junior college transfer who played in 24 games for the Bulldogs as a wide receiver, according to the GeorgiaDogs.com website.
“We got him,” Hale wrote on his Facebook page almost a year after the slaying of the 23-year-old Watkinsville, Georgia, man.
Crumpton was arrested Wednesday and is in a Philadelphia jail, according to Hale.
The case received its key break when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI located and matched the shell casing of a gun that matched a shell casing found at the RaceTrac station, according to the sheriff’s report.
That break occurred on Feb. 15 when the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network database produced the match between the two shell casings.
Details of how that shell casing was obtained in Philadelphia have not been released.
Hale said he will hold a press conference Thursday to announce other details of the case.
"I'm glad this stage of it is over and we've got him in custody. Now we can move to the next stage of his prosecution," the sheriff said.
Hale said investigators in his office, along with federal and Philadelphia police worked together to establish a link between Philadelphia and Athens.
“For the past year, we have seen the pain, agony and frustrations this murder has brought to Elijah’s family, friends and to our community,” the sheriff said.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Akhil Crumpton, ex-UGA football player, arrested in shooting death
