When Jibri Bryan backed his white Monte Carlo into the Flash Foods parking lot on the corner of College and Forsyth streets, he was there to buy drugs, said a Bibb County investigator.
Joe Kovac Jr. and Amy Leigh Womack of the (Macon) Telegraph reported that during a court hearing Wednesday the investigator recounted a statement made by one of Bryan’s alleged killers, 24-year-old Jarvis Miller, to police.
Miller said his alleged partner, Damion Deray Henderson, tried to sell Bryan fake Xanax. When Bryan refused to buy them, Henderson threatened the Mercer graduate student and basketball player to “buy them or else,” said investigator Shaun Bridger.
Bridger’s testimony matches early hints that drugs were involved. Reporters were told that investigators found $300 in cash and a suspicious bottled substance at the scene.
Unanswered questions remain in the case. Bridger revealed that there are no eyewitnesses to the murder other than Henderson and Miller.
Miller — who was also shot that afternoon — and Henderson’s stories conflict. Henderson said he was standing by the car when he heard gunshots. Miller, however, said that Henderson fired the shots that killed Bryan and then turned the gun on him. The physical evidence in the case matches Miller’s story, Bridger testified.
Reports state that Miller was seen fleeing to the nearby Ronald McDonald House after the shots rang out.
It was there that police found a jammed .380 caliber handgun behind a trash bin at the back of the building, Bridger said.
A 9 mm pistol was found near an abandoned Nissan Sentra that Miller and Henderson rode in to meet Bryan. Shell casings from the 9 mm were found in the Flash Foods parking lot.
Henderson said he borrowed the car from a local woman and left it close to an apartment on Orange Terrace where he sometimes lived with his mother.
Desmond Ringer, Mercer basketball player and close friend of Bryan, declined to comment.
Sports Editor Justin Baxley contributed to this report.
'Buy them or else': Investigator testifies Jibri Bryan was killed in drug deal
Jibri Bryan goes up against a defender in the Bears' game against the Chattanooga Mocs, February 2015.
