Their facial expressions were numb Tuesday afternoon as they gathered mostly in silence across the street from the house where family members had been shot and killed the night before.
Crime scene tape was still up around the one-story house at the corner of Live Oak and Northeast 36th streets. Detectives still worked around the home where Anderson Mells Jr., Gary Bernard Mells and Johnnie Jamar Green were slain.
Whoever killed the three men, meanwhile, remained at large.
Herbert Sanders, the Mells brothers’ uncle, remained calm as he stood with other family members across from their house.
“Why would anybody think to do something like that?” the 82-year-old man said.
Officers responding to reports of gunshots about 8:30 p.m. Monday were directed to the house on the 1200 block of Northeast 36th, where they could see three bodies through an open door, said Julian Miller, Savannah-Chatham police spokesman.
Anderson Mells, 52, and Gary Mells, 30, lived there. Green, 37, did not.
Police detained two people in a traffic stop shortly after the shooting but released them after they were questioned by detectives, Miller said.
Homicide detectives and forensics officers were on scene through the night.
In the course of the night, a large crowd gathered outside the house, Miller said, including members of the victims’ families and their friends.
The police department called in two of its chaplains, and at least three others came on their own, Miller said.
“While detectives said the shootings clearly were targeted, they also focused on risky activities that took place in the residence to determine if they were connected to the crime,” Miller said in a news release.
Miller declined to explain what “risky activities” might include.
Detric Leggett, a community activist in the area, said he’d watched the younger Mells grow up.
“A life that’s lost is a life too many, and we lost three at a time,” Leggett said. “The entire community right now is numb.”
Sanders said he hopes someone comes forward to tell police what they need to catch whoever’s responsible for the triple homicide.
“We don’t need those people on the streets,” he said. “They’ll do somebody else the same way.”
On Tuesday, undercover and specialty units joined homicide detectives in the hunt for the killer or killers. Metro’s Undercover Narcotics Investigation Unit, Chatham-Savannah Counter Narcotics Team agents and the FBI’s violent crimes task force canvassed neighborhoods surrounding Live Oak for information.
“This is a critical stage of the investigation, and we are looking for any information that can help lead us to suspects,” metro police Maj. Larry Branson, who commands the department’s Criminal Investigations Division, said in a news release.
“Witnesses understandably sometimes are hesitant to provide information so soon after an event such as this,” he said, “but we need all the help we can get to solve this crime. This is a significant incident in our community.”
Police are asking anyone with information that can help their investigation into the triple homicide at Live Oak and Northeast 36th streets to call the anonymous CrimeStoppers service at 912-234-2020 or text CRIMES (274637) using the keyword CSTOP2020.
Tipsters, who remain anonymous, may qualify for cash. Additionally, detectives can be reached confidentially at 912-525-3124, and most area clergy have agreed to serve as liaisons for anyone who want to share information with police in secret.