Man Kills Couple Over a Facebook Unfriending

Potter (on right) Curd (on left)

Please verify the identity of  you accept as friend on Facebook and other social network before you suddenly start unfriending. A Tennessee man shot a couple in their Mountain City home on Wednesday after the couple unfriended his adult daughter.

According to the Washington Post, Marvin Potter, 60, is being charged with two accounts of first-degree murder for the deaths.  He is believed to have entered the home between 5:30am and 11:00am on Wednesday and shooting both Billy Payne Jr., 36, and his girlfriend Billie Jean Hayworth, 23. Both were found with gunshot wounds to the head, and Payne’s throat had been cut.

Hayworth, Payne, and their daughter

A neighbor stopped by to pick up mail from the house about five hours after the time of death and found the couple’s eight-month old daughter in the arms of Hayworth in the baby’s room. Payne was located in his bedroom.
The couple started being harassed by Potter’s daughter, Janelle Potter, after she was unfriended on Facebook. The couple eventually involved the local police according to Johnson County Sheriff Mike Reece. “It’s a senseless thing,” he was reported say. This was not the first time Janelle had involvements with the police or other authority figures. The 30-year-old was known for becoming confrontational with people she felt were treating her wrongly.
Potter was not the only one arrested for the killings. A friend of his, Jamie Curd, 38, who reportedly was romantically interested in Janelle, was charged as an accessory.

Bond has been set for both of the men – Potter at $200,000 until he can find a lawyer on his own for an arraignment and Curd at $1.5 million after being appointed a lawyer.

Payne and Hayworth were last seen alive by Billy Payne, Sr. who lived with the couple. He told police officers that the last thing he witnessed was Hayworth getting up to feed the baby at 5:30 in the morning before he left for work.
There are probably many people who feel like this shooting was useless and completely crazy. They probably are not  alone. Hopefully, the full understanding of why this couple was murdered in their own home will come to light, but as of this moment it seems to be a completely ridiculous event that has destroyed two families.