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pregnant mother who was critically wounded in a weekend kidnapping that killed her fiancé has died after giving birth to a premature baby girl.
Briana Brooks, 21, was taken off life support Thursday night at an Atlanta hospital after recovered with her fiancé, Jeronta Brown, 24, lying alongside a road early Saturday
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The couple, expecting their second child, was each found with a gunshot wound to the head
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"They were handcuffed, both of them," Orenthious Martin, who came across the victims around 4:30 a.m. tol
"Not tied. There were handcuffs on them."
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police believe the Saturday morning attack outside a family home wasn't random and the couple likely knew their abductors.
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since their terrifying abduction, Atlanta police say they are investigating a second, similar kidnapping of a woman that occurred Thursday morning in East Atlanta.
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asked if they may be related, Capt. Paul Guerrucci, commander of the Atlanta Police Department's homicide unit, said "We're considering all possibilities."
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we do not think that we have a kidnapping crew just randomly going around and snatching people off the road," he said in a press conference
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"We believe that the victims were targeted for one reason or another that we're not going to talk about right now, but they're not random, totally random."
In Thursday morning's kidnapping that occurred in a parking lot, the victim was recovered safe later that evening. Guerrucci declined to provide further details in that case.
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Brooks and Browns' abduction, however, the attackers demanded ransoms. According to some witness recounts, they also presented themselves as law enforcement officers.
Brown's aunt, Myesha Brown, who witnessed Saturday's abduction first hand, said the men who snatched them outside her home identified themselves as FBI agents.
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said the young couple was returning with their 8-month-old baby and Brown's 14-year-old sister around 12:30 a.m. when they were ambushed by at least two masked men.
"When they pulled up, they pulled up behind them so they were maybe following them," Brown's sister, who escaped by running into a neighbor's yard with the baby,
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Brown also managed to escape, said Myesha, but once he realized Brooks was not with him he came back for her.
"Once he turned around and saw his fiancée laid out on the ground he just turned around and said you just might as well take me too,
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Myesha, who was inside the house when this all happened, said the abductors then turned their attention to the house.
"The guys walked up, started ringing the door bell, banging on the door. 'FBI, FBI!'" she said they shouted.
Unable to get in, the men handcuffed the couple and then forced them inside of a brown van.
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the vehicle left, Brown's family said they received a phone call from his cellphone. The caller demanded $150,000 for his return.
Tragically negotiations proved fruitless for their release. Roughly four hours later, their bodies were discovered approximately 17 miles away.
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stepfather, Calvin Reddick, speculated that they may have been targeted because of a large settlement check his family recently received.
"I drive a nice car,"
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"My wife drives a nice car. They must know we have money."
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candlelight vigil for the couple Thursday night, family of the victims publicly pleaded for the killers to turn themselves in.
"Turn yourself in. That was my first grandson. I want you to turn yourself in. That was not fair," Robin Bryant, the victim's grandmother
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Police are asking that anyone with information about either of the abductions to please come forward.