The man accused of killing Department of Homeland Security employee Lauren Bullis and two others in a DeKalb County shooting spree died Tuesday night inside the county jail, authorities said.
Olaolukitan Adon Abel, 26, was found unresponsive in his cell just after 6:48 p.m., according to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office. Detention staff tried to save him, but he was pronounced dead at 7:17 p.m.
The sheriff’s office said it opened an internal investigation into the circumstances of Abel’s death. Officials also said there was no indication of foul play. The official cause of death had not been determined.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, authorities accused Abel of carrying out a string of attacks across DeKalb County over nearly six hours.
Police said Prianna Weathers, 31, was shot outside a Checkers restaurant on Wesley Chapel Road around 1 a.m. About an hour later, Tony E. Matthews, 49, was shot outside a Kroger in Brookhaven. Lauren Bullis, 40, was later shot and stabbed while walking her dog on Battle Forest Drive, authorities said. Matthews later died from his injuries, bringing the death toll to three.
The case drew national attention after Bullis was identified as an auditor and team leader in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.
The attacks also renewed scrutiny over Biden-era naturalization vetting. Abel was born in the United Kingdom and became a U.S. citizen in 2022 while serving in the U.S. Navy, according to prior reporting and statements from DHS officials. However, it remains unclear from public reporting whether any of Abel’s prior alleged offenses occurred before he became a citizen.
“On Monday, a DHS employee, Lauren Bullis, was brutally shot and stabbed to death by Olaolukitan Adon Abel, a 26-year-old, born in the United Kingdom, who was naturalized by the Biden Administration in 2022,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a department news release previously cited by The Dallas Express. “These acts of pure evil have devastated our Department and my prayers are with the families of the victims.”
In the same announcement, DHS highlighted a new vetting center created in December and said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had restored neighborhood investigations for some naturalization cases to better verify applicants’ eligibility.
Authorities have not publicly identified a motive in the attacks.
