MONROE, Ga. — The baby at the center of an overnight Amber Alert in Monroe has been found safe, however, the child's mother was found dead and her father is charged with murder, police said.
On Saturday around 9:30 p.m., the Monroe Police Department responded to the 600 block of Stonecreek Bend regarding an "unknown problem." When police arrived, they found 31-year-old Crystal Hyatt dead inside the home.
Police said the suspect, 27-year-old Gregory Deonte Norwood, was the father of the victim's one-year-old child. They said he abducted the child which sparked the statewide alert.
Kevin Furtado, who lives a few houses down from where Hyatt’s body was discovered, says it was something he never expected to see in a neighborhood that is normally so quiet.
“We saw the police over here early and they all had their lights off and so forth. And then they were kind of just checking out the place and we found out about the incident,” he told 11Alive’s Karys Belger.
Furtado and his wife say they watched for hours as the police taped off the house and began investigating. He says he’s working through what happened along with the rest of his neighbors.
“We can't believe this happened in this neighborhood on that. But I guess anything's possible,” he said. “I'm just really sad for the mother and so forth.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was called to process the scene and were able to track down Norwood's car to an address in Newton County, where the sheriff's office was able to arrest him.
The child was located safely, police said, with her grandmother in Gwinnett County.
Norwood was arrested and is charged with murder and kidnapping. He is currently being held at the Walton County Detention Center. They said other charges are possible.