Man killed at Pinewood Apartments in Chattanooga was shot five times

photo Chattanooga police investigate a suspicious death at the Pinewood Apartments on Pinewood Avenue.

A suspect has been arrested in Georgia in connection with a suspicious death April 3 at the PineWood Apartments in Brainerd.

Officers arrested Eric Fitzgerald Williams, 42, on Tuesday in the Atlanta area in connection with the death of 44-year-old Daniel Adams, according to Chattanooga Police Department Officer Tim McFarland, department spokesman.

McFarland said that he was not sure how Williams had been arrested.

On April 3, Adams' girlfriend, Nancy Fortson, called police after she returned home to her apartment at 3301 Pinewood Ave. from work around 8:55 a.m. to find Adams unresponsive on the bedroom floor. Fortson reported that she had last spoken with him at about 10:49 p.m. on April 2. There were no signs of forced entry.

A Hamilton County medical examiner determined Adams' cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds. According to the medical examiner's report, Adams was shot five times -- twice in the head and three times in the upper-thigh area. His original cause of death had been reported as suspected head trauma.

According to police records, several neighbors told a Chattanooga police investigator that they heard a number of gunshot near the apartment at around 12:30 a.m.

However, 911 personnel received no calls about gunshots in the area at the time, McFarland said.

Eric Jones, who lives in the building across from where the homicide took place, said on April 3 that he had heard gunshots the night before, sometime after midnight. However, he said that he did not see anything suspicious when he looked outside. Random gunshot sounds are common in the area, he added.

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Pinewood Apartments

Pinewood Apartments

Police said that at about 12:43 a.m. the same day, Williams showed up at HCA Parkridge Medical Center with a wound to his head. Williams, who was driving a 2014 red Ford Fusion with Florida tags, said he had been shot near Ringgold Road. He refused to answer any more questions, according to police records.

Video from PineWood apartments at about the time neighbors reported gunshots revealed a 2014 Ford Fusion entering and leaving the apartments. Also, Williams' latent fingerprint was found on an item in the apartment about 10 feet from where Adams was found dead, according to police records.

Williams is in the process of being extradited from Georgia to the Hamilton County Jail, according to a news release.

Contact staff writer Alex Harris at aharris@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592.

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