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  • February 14, 2025
Three people killed in Tignall, suspect Shannon Box is on the loose in Wilkes County, GBI says

Three people killed in Tignall, suspect Shannon Box is on the loose in Wilkes County, GBI says

TIGNALL, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – The man accused of the Tignall triple homicide has been booked into the Wilkes County Jail, we learned Monday.

Jermaine Williams, serious Parkman

Authorities on Friday identified the people found dead in a home outside Tignall in a triple murder case that left the community shocked.

Authorities said Friday they had arrested Shannon Box, 56, for the murders of Chauncey Box, 55; Brenda Lipscomb, 67; and Michael Schmidt, 55. The coroner said all three Tignall residents died “from a seizure.”

On Monday, authorities released his booking photo:

Shannon Box
Shannon Box(WRDW/WAGT)

After the killings, the Wilkes County town, which has fewer than 500 residents and only one red light, was gripped by shock and grief.

“It just shocked me. It really shocked me. That is really true,” says Keta Martin, who works at a local company.

“It was like someone very close to me had passed away, and I just had to go home and take some time,” she said.

She knew the man who was arrested.

Aiken Department of Public Safety

“I said, ‘Huh?’ And I’m like – he just came over here,” she said.

“He’d come in and he’d say, ‘Hey everyone, how are you doing?’ We’d say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ And that led me to get to know him,” she said.

“I have a lot of customers like that. I don’t even know them, don’t even know their names, but they feel like they can talk to me. So I just sit there and listen to them,” Martin said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the case unfolded after Wilkes County deputies responded to the 900 block of Mallorysville Road around 8:30 a.m. Thursday in reference to an injured woman.

Officers learned she had been injured at another home on the same road.

There they found the bodies of the murder victims.

There was a GBI presence late into the night at the scene of a triple homicide on Mallorysville Road...
There was a GBI presence late into the night at the scene of a triple homicide on Mallorysville Road in Wilkes County.(WRDW)

The GBI said preliminary information indicated Box attacked the woman, causing several injuries. Officials said she was taken to a hospital and were not releasing her name.

The suspect was not apprehended until after 8 a.m. Friday, when the Wilkes County Sheriff’s Office learned he had been spotted near Danburg Road. Officers found him at a church on Jones Chapel Road, where he was taken into custody without incident.

According to the GBI, he is charged with aggravated assault, three counts of murder and three counts of possession of a knife during the commission of a crime.

While it will take years for locals to forget what happened, there is one thing that will never change: the town’s sense of community, which is barely a dot on the map: a place where everyone knows you and you know everyone .

“I really enjoy working here because I meet different people and have different conversations,” says Martin.

Many GBI investigators were at the scene of the Wilkes County triple homicide the evening of...
Many GBI investigators were at the scene of the Wilkes County triple homicide on the evening of December 5, 2024.(WRDW)

The killings are the latest in a series of massacres in recent days within the CSRA:

All the killings take place during a two-year outbreak of violent crimes claimed more than 180 lives in the CSRA.

Cities large and small have been affected on both sides of the Savannah River.