DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — If you think you are safe from gangs, a local prosecutor says you should think again.
Channel 2 Action News is learning new insight into the gang violence that killed an 11-year-old girl and her 15-year-old brother.
"We as a state and we as a nation need to take this gang crisis very seriously. It's everywhere," said Clayton County Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Chris Sperry.
More than 17 months after two children lost their lives on Libby Lane in gang-related gunfire, Clayton County police charged DeKalb County elementary school teacher, Michael D'Sean White, with their killing.
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The 26-year-old was charged with four counts of murder.
Investigators believe gang members invaded the children's home in search of a teen who wasn't there. The teen was someone who had been staying at the home as a favor to his mother.
White's lawyer has maintained he is not affiliated with a gang but Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne has learned a new indictment reveals new details about the killings and two other crimes.
It charges nine people with the murders of the two children and two people with other crimes.
Vernon Beamon and Christopher Leonard Spencer were charged with the murders. He said both have pleaded not guilty to similar charges.
Spencer's lawyer Robin Shipp told Channel 2 his client maintains his innocence and looks forward to an adjudication of innocence.
A DeKalb prosecutor said Beamon and Spencer were convicted last year in DeKalb County on gang and murder charges for the killings of Samuel White and Sylvia Watson killings that took place just two days after the Coates murders.
Sperry confirmed Spencer is the same Christopher Spencer suspected of the murder of Bridget Shiel in Atlanta.
"He denied knowing Bridget or having any contact with her," said lawyer Andre Lowe.
Cox Media Group
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