Decatur, Georgia
To the general public, Lauren Bullis was a devoted employee for the Department of Homeland Security in Georgia – a consummate skilled dedicated to public service.
To her family members, the 40-year-old from Decatur was an adventurous explorer who traveled the world and introduced pleasure to pals close to and much.
“You couldn’t meet her and not be her friend,” fellow DHS auditor Ashley Toillion instructed the Associated Press. “She was just the nicest, sweetest, most encouraging person I’ve ever met.”
The pair bonded over working and deliberate to participate in a race at Walt Disney World.
But on Monday morning, as Bullis was strolling her French bulldog Sancho, she was shot and stabbed in Panthersville – an unincorporated neighborhood about 15 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta.
Her loss of life got here simply hours after one other lady, 31-year-old Prianna Weathers, was gunned down close to a restaurant in Decatur. A 3rd taking pictures sufferer, an unhoused man who was attacked outdoors a grocery retailer in Brookhaven, survived however was critically injured.
Based on surveillance footage and license plate readers, authorities consider the identical man, 26-year-old Olaolukitan Adon Abel of Atlanta, shot all three victims in a rampage that has been highlighted by the Trump administration.
While the motive stays unclear, Bullis’ employment at DHS and Adon Abel’s standing as a naturalized citizen has sparked questions – and criticism from the company about crimes the suspect dedicated after he turned a US citizen.
Bullis was a beloved fixture in her neighborhood – usually seen working, strolling Sancho or tending to the beautiful flowers she planted in her yard.
She “embraced the sport of running with great gusto, having run 5ks, 10ks, and half-marathons across the country,” her obituary says. “On visits to loved ones, Lauren always asked for a spare key so she could get her miles in without waking her hosts.”
Just final month, Bullis accomplished her first marathon in Atlanta.
“She’s very athletic,” neighbor Portia Powell stated. “If she ain’t walking the dog, she’s running.”
Powell cast a robust friendship with Bullis in latest years, bonding over their shared love of gardening.
“She’s always, ‘Hey, Miss Portia, how you doing?’… so outgoing and friendly,” Powell stated.
Bullis’ loss of life has “impacted the neighborhood tremendously,” Powell stated. “I think it would make us all more aware of what’s going on in the neighborhood and look out for each other.”
The tragedy devastated colleagues on the DHS Office of Inspector General, the place Bullis was an auditor and a workforce chief, the company stated.
“Lauren approached her work with integrity, thoughtfulness, and a commitment to excellence that strengthened our organization and the communities we serve,” DHS stated. “She brought warmth, kindness, and a genuine sense of care to her colleagues each day.”
Bullis’ husband, stepdaughter, dad and mom and siblings at the moment are united in grief, robbed of their beneficiant, hilarious, globe-trotting beacon of sunshine.
“She put the needs of others before her own, tending many times over the years to sick friends and ones who had merely overindulged. She was enormous fun, a great host, dignified, unpretentious, and riotously funny,” Bullis’ obituary says.
“Lauren loved travel, alone or with others, having visited far-flung locales in Egypt, Peru, Greece, Spain, Ireland, and France, among many, many others,” it learn. “She was forever planning her next journey.”
While the string of attacks rattles a number of communities in Georgia, Prianna Weathers’ mom mourns privately in her North Carolina house.
“This was a senseless death,” she instructed NCS. “All of these people he killed … these were innocent people. He had no reason to be harming them. They weren’t doing anything to him.”
Weathers was killed in Decatur, not removed from the place she was born 31 years in the past, her mom stated.
She requested to not be recognized to guard the privateness of Weathers’ 12-year-old son, who she’s out of the blue elevating and should develop up with out his mom.
No clear relationship between the victims and suspect
It’s not clear why the three taking pictures victims had been attacked. Police stated the person who was critically injured seemed to be focused at random, and investigators had been trying into whether or not the 2 ladies killed had been focused randomly.
Don Plummer of the Georgia Public Defender Council declined to element the suspect’s case and background.
“We understand the intense public attention surrounding this case, but Mr. Abel has the same constitutional rights as any other accused person, and our job is to protect those rights in court,” he instructed NCS.
“This is a tragic and serious case. Nothing about defending constitutional rights minimizes that. In fact, the rule of law matters most when emotions are high and the allegations are the most serious.”
Adon Abel, a local from the United Kingdom, turned a naturalized US citizen in 2022, DHS stated.
The naturalization course of usually takes years, and it’s not clear whether or not the majority of Adon Abel’s processing passed off through the first Trump administration or the Biden administration. DHS didn’t reply NCS’s query in regards to the suspect’s naturalization timeline.
DHS blamed the earlier administration for Adon Abel’s naturalization, describing the suspect as a “monster” on a Facebook post.
The company also said Adon Abel was convicted of a number of crimes, together with sexual battery and assault with a lethal weapon. Court data present a defendant listed as Adon Olaolukitan pleaded responsible to 4 counts of misdemeanor sexual battery for a 2025 incident in Georgia – a number of years after the suspect turned an American citizen. He was sentenced to 48 months of probation for these offenses.
Another court docket submitting reveals a defendant named “Olaolukitan Adonabel” pleaded responsible to a 2024 felony assault with a lethal weapon “other than a firearm on a Police officer or firefighter” in California. That document notes the suspect’s identify can also seem as Olaolukitan Adon Abel or Adon Olaolukitan.
The public defender council lambasted DHS’ characterization of the suspect.
“It is irresponsible and troubling for public officials to label an accused person a ‘monster’ before adjudication,” Plummer stated. “That kind of language may be politically convenient, but it is corrosive to due process and to the basic right to a fair trial.”
The data present a number of different prices, however these circumstances had been dismissed.
On Monday, Adon Abel was taken into custody throughout a site visitors cease in Georgia’s Troup County, which borders Alabama. He now faces a number of prices together with two counts of malice homicide, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm through the fee of a felony, police stated.
NCS’s Sneha Dhandapani, Ryan Young, Jason Morris and Lindsey Knight contributed to this report.