A Georgia pastor whose wife was killed after a stray bullet entered their home said he is working with authorities to offer a $10,000 reward for tips that lead to an arrest.
Lashunda Heath-Ellison’s family held a funeral for the mother and hairstylist in Atlanta on Oct. 18, nearly two weeks after her husband, Pastor Herman “Mac” Ellison woke up to her breathing heavy lying atop a bloody pillow. Ellison told his congregation on Sunday he now sleeps in his wife’s spot on the bed to feel close to her.
“It’s still hard to believe that that seat won’t be occupied again,” referring to the first lady’s seat in The Temple of Faith Ministries in Atlanta.
Authorities believe Heath-Ellison’s death was a result of random gunfire that penetrated the family’s wall in their Decatur home. The pastor said DeKalb County police discovered a hole in the back of the house, apparently from a bullet that went through the married couple’s headboard as they slept that night. No one in the home heard the gunfire.
Doctors told Heath-Ellison’s family that the bullet was lodged in the center of her brain. She died days later.
“My momma always said a bullet doesn’t have a name … it can go anywhere it chooses,” the couple’s daughter Taylor Ellison told FOX 5.
The DeKalb County Police Department has opened a homicide investigation into the case and is searching for leads for a possible suspect. The grieving family believes Georgia’s gun laws are to blame for the tragedy.
“This could’ve been avoided…a lot of things could’ve been avoided…this has happened too many times where somebody’s hit by a stray bullet or somebody’s hit intentionally,” the couple’s son Dejuan Ellison said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed in a bill into law in April that loosened gun control allowing gun owners to carry a concealed handgun in public without a license from the state. The pastor said the couple keeps guns in their home, but Heath-Ellison’s family said the state needs more restrictions. About 70 percent of Georgians surveyed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said they oppose permit-less carry.
“The laws of guns … they have to change. I don’t know what the system has to do, I don’t know what the governor has to do,” Taylor Ellison said. “Gov. Kemp, I don’t know what you have to do, but it’s getting out of control.”
