Four slain in Macon shootings, possible gang connections surface

Two separate shootings left four people dead and several injured in Bibb County over the weekend. The spate of deaths nearly doubled the number of killings in the county so far this year. 

A graduation party at a house on Williamson Road apparently turned violent in the pre-dawn hours Saturday. Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home and found three people shot. One man was killed, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

Jaurice Markel Haywood, 25, was pronounced dead by Deputy Coroner Ronnie Miley about 2:30 a.m. 

A few miles away — and a little less than 24 hours later — another shooting left three people dead and six others wounded at Midtown Daiquiri Bar & Grill on Log Cabin Drive.

The shooting occurred at about midnight, according to the sheriff’s office.

Half-brothers Jedarrius Meadows Jr., 28, and Javarsia Meadows, 24, were pronounced dead along with 32-year-old Javonta Faulks, Coroner Leon Jones said. 

Jones said the bar had no security working when the shooting happened in the parking lot where people started congregating. The bar shares a building with a Pentecostal church, a stone’s throw from a shopping center on Presidential Parkway. 

Six others were wounded but are expected to survive, Jones said. Three of them were taken to the hospital in personal vehicles while the other three were transported by ambulance.

Jones said emotions ran high when some family members of those slain showed up at the scene hours after the shooting.

“It’s always sad to see a mama and siblings fall out in the middle of the street when you break the news that their loved ones are dead,” Jones said. 

The four deaths bring the county’s homicide death toll up to nine so far in 2025, Jones said. 

A violent history including gangs and crime preceded at least two of the victims’ deaths. 

Jedarrius Meadows Jr. was 18 when he was tried on a charge of murder related to the 2014 shooting death of 16-year-old Damion Bernard “Little Petey” Clayton at the Macon Little League ballpark on Anthony Road. The beef stemmed from a dispute over territory among rival gangs, court records show. 

Meadows’ half-brother, Javarsia Meadows, graduated from Howard High School and signed with Reinhardt College to play football in 2020. 

Haywood had been released from prison about two months before he was killed at the Williamson Road house. Records show he had been in the county jail since 2023 on charges including aggravated assault and possession of a gun during the commission of a felony. 

Haywood was initially charged in a July 2020 incident in which he and another person shot at a man. Records show Haywood was indicted again in 2023, this time for gang and illegal gun charges. 

Court documents say Haywood was carrying a concealed machine gun in January 2023 to protect himself from retribution and also to engage in retribution on behalf of his association with the Gangster Disciples. The gun and gang charges were not prosecuted. It was unclear from court documents whether that case was dropped as part of a negotiated plea deal he agreed to in December 2024.

Haywood’s plea deal was to serve five years behind bars and another 10 on probation, according to the sentence handed down in December 2024. Instead, he ended up serving about two years.

Haywood was transferred from the Bibb County jail to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in February, according to booking documents. After two months in the Jackson prison, he was paroled on April 2.