A volunteer firefighter has been charged with obstruction, accused of taking photos of teenage twin brothers found dead with gunshot wounds on a Georgia mountain this month.
Scott Kerlin, 42, of Hiawassee, Georgia, was charged with misdemeanor obstruction after he was accused of taking photos of the bodies of 19-year-old twin brothers Qaadir Malik Lewis and Naazir Rahim Lewis and sharing them publicly, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Tuesday.
Hikers found the bodies of the teens, who are from Lawrenceville, at the top of Bell Mountain in Hiawassee the morning of Saturday, March 8. The mountain is about 90 miles from their home.
Authorities have said the deaths are a murder-suicide, according to the preliminary investigation. However, the Lewis family has vehemently disputed that claim, saying the boys were inseparable, never got into fistfights and were not familiar with Bell Mountain.
“How did they end up out in the mountains? They don’t hike out there; they’ve never been out there,” Samira Brawner previously told NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta. “They don’t know anything about Hiawassee, Georgia. They never even heard of Bell Mountain, so how did they end up right there?”
It is not clear exactly how Kerlin, a volunteer firefighter in Towns County, shared the photo of the scene.
Towns County Schools Superintendent Darren Berrong said it was shared among students.
Berrong said in a statement that the school district was made aware that “a crime scene photo had been shared with some of our students on Monday.”
The district launched an investigation and “took appropriate measures to ensure the photo was no longer in the possession of any student.” The students involved were “unaware of the illegal nature of how the photo was distributed,” he said.
Autopsies were completed, but an official ruling on the cause of manner and death is pending addition forensic testing.
Samira Brawner, the twins’ aunt, said she is terrified to go online for fear of seeing the photo.
“It’s scary. I’m literally scared to go on social media. I’m scared to pick up my phone because I know if I see that picture, I already know I’ll have a heart attack,” she told WXIA.
Yasmine Brawner, another aunt, told the station: “Just imagine if their mother sees that — like, that would really destroy her. She’s already going through a lot.”
The twins’ uncle Rahim Brawner, who has worked as a first responder for more than 10 years, said, “We know that’s one of the No. 1 rules is not to take pictures and share them.”
The GBI assisting the Towns County Sheriff’s Office in the death investigation.