Firefighter fired after allegedly sharing photos of Georgia twin brothers' death scene
A volunteer firefighter has been fired and arrested after being accused of taking photos at the scene of the deaths of two brothers in Georgia and sharing them publicly, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Tuesday.
The 42-year-old man was charged with misdemeanor obstruction in connection with the investigation of the deaths of Qaadir Malik Lewis and Naazir Rahim Lewis, both 19.
Atlanta television station 11Alive reported that the firefighter was fired from the Towns County Fire Department on March 14 for violating department protocol. Paste BN reached out to the department and Towns County but did not receive an immediate response.
Hikers found the bodies of the two brothers on the morning of March 8, the bureau previously said. There was no new information on the death investigation in the announcement Tuesday.
Investigators have said they believe the brothers' deaths were a murder-suicide, but the boys' family has rejected that.
"I couldn’t imagine them hurting each other because I’ve never seen them get into a fistfight before,” their uncle, Rahim Brawner, told KSDK-TV.
The agency said Sunday that the autopsies were completed but the official ruling by the medical examiner was pending forensic tests.
Paste BN reached out to the firefighter on Tuesday but did not receive an immediate response. It's unclear if he has an attorney.
Family rejects murder suicide assumption
The twins' family told the media outlet they thought the twins were visiting friends in Boston at the time, adding the brothers had booked a flight to Boston for 7 a.m. on the Friday before but never made the flight. Less than 24 hours later, the two were found dead in an area they had reportedly never visited before with their plane tickets in their wallets.
It is not immediately clear how the two brothers ended up on the mountain and why they were there.
“How did they end up out in the mountains? They don’t hike out there, they’ve never been out there,” Brawner said to KSDK. “They don’t know anything about Hiawassee, Georgia. They never even heard of Bell Mountain, so how did they end up right there?”
Located near the North Carolina border, Bell Mountain is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Atlanta. The boys' hometown, Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta, is located approximately 30 miles northeast of downtown.
"To say they did this to each other? No. Something happened in those mountains, and we want answers," the brothers' aunt Yasmine Brawner told KSDK.
Brawner has set up a GoFundMe to cover funeral expenses for the brothers with a goal of $20,000. The account had collected more than $23,000 as of Monday morning. In the account's description, she again refuted the murder suicide claim.
"Unfortunately, something happened at Bell Mountain that ended the lives of 19-year-old Qaadir and Naazir, which needs to be further investigated," Brawner wrote.
Case has echoes of Kobe Bryant lawsuit
The allegations of sharing photos of a death scene had echoes of the scandal that followed the sharing of photos of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others on Jan. 26, 2020.
In 2023, the Bryant family settled claims against Los Angeles County for a total of $28.5 million after Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, won a $15 million judgment against the county.
Bryant had sued the county several months after the crash, alleging that county sheriff’s and fire department employees used their personal phones to take and share horrific photos from the crash scene of her daughter Gianna and husband Kobe.
Her attorneys said the first responders had no legitimate business reason for doing so and instead were violating her privacy rights by using the photos as souvenirs or objects of amusement.
The photos scandal cost the county more than $51 million in settlements, including $19.95 million for fellow plaintiff Cliff Chester and $1.25 million each for two other families that lost loved ones in the same crash.
In September of 2020, California adopted the so-called "Kobe Bryant Law" that made it a misdemeanor for first responders to take unauthorized photos of dead victims at accident or crime scenes.
Contributing: Brent Schrotenboer