A Georgia man will spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering a woman he had been dating, in a case where the fatal shooting was captured on a 911 call he made himself. On Thursday, November 5, 2026, a DeKalb County jury found Antonio Robert Watson, 38, of Lithonia, guilty of malice murder and a string of related charges in the death of Shalileha Alford, 30, who was shot through the window of her extended-stay motel room in Tucker on April 15, 2025, the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office announced on Friday, November 6.

Source: DeKalb County District Attorney

Immediately after the guilty verdict, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney L. Johnson, who presided over the trial, sentenced Watson to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 20 years. Life without parole is the most severe sentence available in this case under Georgia law short of a death sentence, and it means Watson will not be eligible for release through ordinary parole consideration.

What happened on the morning of April 15, 2025

According to the investigation described by District Attorney Sherry Boston's office, officers with the DeKalb County Police Department responded just before 8 a.m. to a report of a person shot at an extended-stay motel on Crescent Centre Boulevard in Tucker, a community in DeKalb County northeast of Atlanta. When officers arrived, they found Alford lying unconscious in the bathtub of her room. Police saw three shell casings and shattered glass on the sidewalk in front of the room, as well as more shell casings inside the room. Alford died of her injuries a little more than an hour later.

Before law enforcement arrived, a man who identified himself only as “Robert” had called 911 and told the dispatcher that Alford had robbed him and that her dog had bitten him. The 911 recording then captured the sound of multiple shots being fired, after which the caller claimed that Alford had shot at him. Investigators later established that the phone number used to make the 911 call belonged to Watson.

Surveillance video from the motel told a different story from the one on the call. The District Attorney's Office said the video showed a dark gray Nissan Altima registered to Watson arriving in the parking lot at 7:35 a.m. At 7:45 a.m., a man matching Watson's description was recorded getting out of the Altima and walking to Alford's room. Cameras captured Watson knocking on the door of the motel room; Alford could be seen pulling back the curtains of the window to look outside, but she did not open the door. Minutes later, Watson — now on the phone with 911 — took a handgun out of his pocket and fired multiple shots into the window, shattering the glass. He then went through the broken window into the room, fired several more shots, ran back to his car and left the motel, prosecutors said. The video, the office said, directly contradicted Watson's claim that Alford had shot at him.

The warning the day before, and the arrest

During their investigation, police learned that Alford had called 911 the day before the shooting, on April 14, 2025, to report that Watson had assaulted her. She told officers that Watson, whom she had been casually dating, had forced his way into her motel room, punched her repeatedly, hit her in the head with a handgun, and threatened to shoot her in the face, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Hours after the shooting, a Georgia State Patrol trooper spotted Watson's car and attempted to pull him over on Memorial Drive near Candler Road. Instead of stopping, Watson led the trooper on a brief chase that ended when the trooper executed a PIT maneuver and took Watson into custody without further incident, the office said.

The counts, and the team that prosecuted the case

The jury convicted Watson of malice murder, three counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, home invasion in the first degree, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and possession of a firearm after having been convicted of certain felonies. The case was assigned to the District Attorney's Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit and was prosecuted by Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Ashley Johnson, with assistance from Assistant District Attorney Aaron L. Brown, District Attorney Investigator J. Justus, and Victim Advocates Ashley King, Shelbie Rainwater and Veronica Pelaez-Maya. DeKalb County Police Department Detectives Posey and Kearney led the initial investigation.

For readers in Georgia's large immigrant and Punjabi communities around metro Atlanta, the case is also a reminder of how the system handled a documented warning sign: the victim herself had reported an assault and a threat to shoot her to police one day before she was killed, and that report became part of the prosecution's case at trial. Anyone facing domestic violence in the United States can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.