Crime & Safety

Lawrenceville Homicide, Beating Being Investigated

Gwinnett police release identity of 76-year-old woman found dead in home.

Gwinnett Police are investigating the homicide Tuesday (March 8) of a woman in her 70s and the beating of a woman in her 30s at a home on High Sierra Drive in unincorporated Lawrenceville.

Christopher A. Gheesling, 29, told police he discovered the victims after returning home to the 1500 block of High Sierra Drive around 3:30 p.m. and noticing the back door had been forced open, according to Cpl. Edwin Ritter of the Gwinnett County Police Department,

Gheesling, who lived at the home, found his girlfriend Cheryl Sullivan, 30, alive with blunt-force trauma on her body. He discovered the older woman dead in another part of the house, according to Ritter. Sullivan was taken by county fire officials to the Gwinnett Medical Center and treated for non-life-threatening injuries, he said.

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Police Wednesday identified the victim as 76-year-old Alma B. Ercolano. Her cause of death had not yet been determined by the the Medical Examiner’s Office. 

The case remains under investigation.

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