‘The System Screwed Up’: Atlanta Murder Suspect Walked Free for 18 Months Until He Allegedly Killed U.S. Postal Worker In Nearby Suburb
An Atlanta murder suspect who had been on the lam for more than a year after allegedly killing a man in 2024 has finally been arrested, and the victim’s family is raising questions over why it took so long to bring the suspected shooter to justice.
Donato Bradford Jr., originally from Augusta, was a music student at the SAE Institute in Atlanta. His family told WXIA that he had enrolled in the school only months before he was fatally shot during an armed home invasion.
On July 31, 2024, police say a man stormed into 24-year-old Bradford’s apartment near Georgia Tech and shot him to death.
Authorities reviewed surveillance footage showing the suspect knocking on Bradford’s door. When Bradford opened the door, the suspect barged in and immediately opened fire. Bradford died at the scene.
Authorities identified the suspect as Nahjel Williams.
It took three months just to secure a warrant for Williams’ arrest on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Williams possesses a grisly criminal rap sheet. He was arrested in 2020 after allegedly biting a part of someone’s face off. In 2021, he faced drug and speeding charges.
The next year, he was jailed for aggravated battery with disfigurement after reportedly gouging out someone’s eye. He also allegedly assaulted an inmate while at the suburban Atlanta Cobb County Jail. He was on probation at the time of Bradford’s murder.
In the months after Bradford’s death, investigators never caught wind of Williams’ whereabouts.
Bradford’s family said they checked in with Atlanta investigators almost every month, but to no avail.
“We looked through crime stoppers and all that, the fugitive list, but I would never see anything about DJ,” Donato Bradford said. “I would just call [APD] and say, OK, what’s the status with the case? Where we at? They’d say he moved from one location to another. They just kept saying that.”
Donato’s father even offered to bankroll a $50,000 reward just for information on Williams that would lead to an arrest, but police thought it would only scare Williams into fleeing further. He heeded the detectives’ assessments and trusted that Williams’ warrant would catch up with him.
“They would just say he was moving around,” Bradford said. “They told me they were tracking him, and it was just a matter of time before they got him.”
Records showed that Williams was arrested for car theft in Baltimore, Maryland, only a month before Bradford’s death. But by the time Atlanta authorities could secure a warrant for his arrest, he was released from jail and on the run again.
Donato’s family wondered how he kept getting away, but kept faith that it wouldn’t take long for him to slip up.
“Human nature is if you do a crime and you get away with it, you’re gonna go do it again,” Donato’s father said.
On Feb. 12, 2026, metro Atlanta local authorities reported another murder in DeKalb County.
Dequavious “Quay” Graves, a U.S. postal worker, had been shot to death while he was delivering mail in Decatur, which adjoins Atlanta.
Graves’ family couldn’t make sense of it.
Like Donato, 31-year-old Graves had also attended the SAE Institute in Atlanta and graduated with a degree in audio engineering, WTVM reported. He went on to become a music producer. His family described him as a sweet and gentle soul.
Because Graves worked for a federal agency, the FBI investigated his death.
It didn’t take long for investigators to identify Williams, now 24, as a person of interest in Graves’ murder. Police found out he was living in a halfway house in Decatur. He was arrested days after the shooting and was charged with Donato’s murder, as well.
While it took only days to pin Graves’ killing on Williams, the Bradford family had been waiting 18 months to see him jailed.
Donato’s family questions where the breakdown occurred in the search for Williams.
“I’ve already accepted I can’t do anything about my son,” he said. “But that mailman shouldn’t have been killed because the system screwed up. That mailman should be alive.”
Graves’ mother, Shannon Graves, agreed with Bradford.
“There’s always gonna be that one spot in my heart that what if before all this happened if they would have just taken that small step to get him off the streets,” she said.
WXIA reported that the Atlanta Police Department declined to comment on the attempts to locate Williams after Bradford’s death, as well as its policies regarding fugitives and executing warrants.
Williams is currently sitting in a Fulton County Jail with no bond. He has not been officially indicted for Bradford’s and Graves’ murders yet.
The only question that remains for the families and local authorities is why. The motive for both men’s murders remains unclear. Both families also clarified that neither Bradford nor Graves knew each other or Williams prior to the shootings.