Sleeping scientist killed when ‘stray’ bullet flies through bedroom wall, GA cops say

A scientist died as he slept when a bullet flew through an apartment wall at 2 a.m. and struck him in the head, according to the Brookhaven Police Department in Georgia.

Investigators believe it was a “stray bullet” that killed Dr. Matthew Willson, and he was not an intended target.

The Jan. 16 homicide case gained international notoriety after news outlets in the United Kingdom began reporting Willson, 31, was a vacationing British citizen.

Specifically, he was an astrophysicist from Chertsey, Surrey, and he was “in the US visiting his girlfriend,” the Independent reported.

Details of the shooting were posted this week by multiple law enforcement agencies in the wider Atlanta area, in hopes someone could help Brookhaven police identify a suspect. The city is just northeast of Atlanta.

Investigators believe Willson’s death is connected to reports of shots being fired in a nearby apartment community that same morning, according to a news release.

Minutes later, police were told someone had been struck by a bullet.

“It was learned that the victim, Dr. Matthew Willson, was lying in bed when a stray bullet entered the wall into the headboard striking him in the back of the head. Dr. Willson did not survive,” officials said.

“Through investigation the Brookhaven Police ... determined that Dr. Willson was killed as a result of the reckless discharge of firearms.”

His girlfriend, Katherine Shepard, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Willson had gone to bed when she heard multiple gunshots outside the apartment.

”Then the bullet came through,” she told the newspaper. “Then I heard his breathing change.”

The BBC reports Willson had worked on his Ph.D. at the University of Exeter in southern England, and had been “a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia State University between 2017 and 2019.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 11:01 AM with the headline "Sleeping scientist killed when ‘stray’ bullet flies through bedroom wall, GA cops say."