Dozens were reportedly in attendance at Troy Eaton’s Georgia fishing competition when horrified bystanders watched his 85-year-old father come into the bait business on family property and allegedly shoot his son on Friday evening.
Covington police, who were dispatched just before 7 p.m. on Friday, July 12, said Troy Eaton was “deceased inside a building on the property” when they arrived, and that the alleged shooter, Wayne Eaton, “was still on scene” before being booked into Newton County Jail and charged with murder, according to a brief press release.
Tiffany Eaton Cartledge, Troy’s daughter, stated on Facebook that “Papa Troy” was an active presence in his grandchildren’s lives who would “give until he had nothing left to give.”
“He was as fair as the word can get, and he loved with his whole heart,” she said of the 60-year-old, who she described as a vital part of his small-town community in Covington, Georgia.
Cartledge stated that her father “worked hours on end to keep Lakeview Drive Tournament Lakes” — where he was eventually fatally shot — open in honor of his mother.
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The Covington Police Department was asked for more information on the current investigation, but it declined to comment.
Over the weekend, the police department informed WSB-TV Atlanta that there was security footage and numerous witnesses to the incident. They didn’t discuss a probable motivation.
“There’s a lot of confusion right now,” Troy’s grandson, Ethan Sanders, told the site. “Nobody knows what is going to happen.”
The elder Eaton’s arrest records were not available online on Monday, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported over the weekend that he had been put into Newton jail.
It wasn’t immediately known whether the elder Eaton had hired a counsel or entered a plea.
His granddaughter did not mention him in her post about her father.
Cartledge commented on Facebook, “Words cannot describe the pain or how utterly heartbroken anyone who ever knew him is.” “I keep telling myself that this is just the worst nightmare I could have, but then I don’t wake up from it.”