Vigil held for mother of three killed in Austell shooting

AUSTELL — Friends and neighbors gathered this week to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of a woman gunned down early on the morning of July 11 in Austell.

Cobb police identified 24-year-old Lena Wolfe, who was known as Kayla Bryant to friends and family, as one of two people killed in a shooting at the Premier Apartments in Austell. A 27-year-old Carrollton man, Jeremy Davis, was also killed in the shooting. A third victim, 36-year-old Yolanda Spiller of Austell, was shot in the head but is expected to survive her injuries.

At 4 p.m. on the afternoon of July 12, organizers with We Thrive in Riverside Renters Association and the Thrive Resource Center held a vigil for Bryant and a food and clothing drive for her family. She is survived by her fiancé, Wendell Evans, and three children ages five, four, and four months.

“She was a great mom, the kids love her,” a visibly emotional Evans said. “I love her.”

Evans told the MDJ Bryant was a generous woman, someone who would feed stray animals and help people struggling with homelessness.

“She would give a squirrel some food out here,” Evans said. “She would help out with the homeless people. She would take my clothes and give them to the homeless people on the street. She would literally take the shirt off her back and give it to somebody.”

In a corner of the parking lot at the Silver Creek Crossings apartment complex, where Bryant lived with Evans and their three children, a folding table with a box of diapers, a package of assorted Lay’s chips, two boxes of fried chicken and a package of bottled water was set up perpendicular to another table with two rows of about a dozen children’s chairs of various colors behind it.

At the second folding table, art supplies were available for children at the event, about 10 in total, to draw and color.

“I knew her because she would come to different workshops, she would come to different events right here at the center, so I know she loved her family, I know she was a woman of character,” said Monica DeLancy, the founder of the renters’ association and resource center that she runs out of the Silver Creek complex.

DeLancy said her group had organized the event to ensure that Evans felt supported and had some of what he needed to continue supporting the couple’s children.

DeLancy and her sister, Courtney Omega, said Bryant is already part of a marginalized and disenfranchised community that does not receive adequate attention from the public. Bryant was killed in an apartment complex they said is known to police as a hotbed for violence, but they believe police may still not give her case enough attention.

“This is a young mother, this is not someone that was a transient, this is someone that was a staple here, someone that was involved, someone that was well known, obviously,” Omega said.

Omega also identified Bryant as a recent victim of gun violence in the U.S., though one who has not received the same attention as victims of other shootings.

“Lena is just as much of a victim as the children in Texas, as the people in Chicago, she’s as much of a victim,” Omega said. “Why isn’t this being treated like that? We really wanna know. Why are Black lives so devalued here? Why? And especially in a place like Atlanta.”

Cynthia McGarity, along with her son, Koron Webb, and his wife, Jasmine Webb, came to the vigil to support the family. McGarity and her family are involved in gun violence prevention organizations, and she started the nonprofit Rehoboth Family Services in 1988 to help families in the south Cobb community affected by violence and other issues related to the criminal justice system.

For McGarity, violence like that now impacting Bryant’s family and the Silver Creek community is personal: her son, Malcolm Webb, was shot and killed in Paulding County in 2016.

McGarity said it was important for her to be there to support Evans and his family to help prevent retaliation.

“We will work with this family and help them go through the different levels, we have children involved,” McGarity said. “There are support services for families but most times, people are not aware what’s available because most times they don’t expect this, no one expects that their loved ones might be taken like that. It changes your whole world.”

DeLancy told the MDJ that Evans was assaulted at the Silver Creek Crossings apartments shortly after the vigil concluded. The MDJ has contacted the Cobb Police Department to learn more about the allegation.

DeLancy did not say why Evans was attacked, but said she sent email requests to Cobb police and the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office around 1 p.m. July 12 for an officer to provide security at the vigil. DeLancy said police did not respond to her request.

According to Cobb police, a suspect in the shooting that killed Bryant is now in custody. Lester Piercefield, 27, was arrested by the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force, said Officer Shenise Barner, spokesperson for the Cobb Police Department.

Piercefield faces two counts of murder and three counts of aggravated assault, Barner said. He is being held without bond at the Cobb County jail.