DEKALB COUNTY, Ga.,None — Police have identified a body discovered by a 4- and 6-year-old while riding their bicycles near a wooded area.
"We have positively identified the deceased victim from yesterday's murder as Christopher M. Bennett, 21 years of age," officials wrote in an e-mail to Channel 2.
SLIDESHOW: Children Find Body In Woods Body Found In Wood ID'd As Missing Man
DeKalb County police spokesman Jason Gagnon said the discovery was made Wednesday afternoon in the 4600 block of Wildginger Run in Lithonia.
Channel 2 Action News reporter Erica Byfield spoke with the mother of one of the children.
"I was in the house on the couch and my daughter and niece ran in and told me there is a man in the woods," said the woman who only wanted to be identified as Nicole.
"I asked them, ‘How do you know he's dead?' They said, ‘He's just laying there.'" I told them to stop playing and my daughter said, ‘Mommy, I'm not playing.'" She was really hysterical, the woman said.
When she ran outside to the wooded area to investigate for herself, she couldn't believe it.
"I know I saw one gunshot to the chest and I know that he was beaten," the woman said.
Police confirmed that the victim suffered a gunshot wound.
The woman said her house is near the end of a dead end street.
WSBTV
