Three Georgia men accused of raping, shooting and burning woman after rap contest goes bad

Three Georgia men were arrested over the weekend on multiple charges after police accused them of raping, shooting and burning a woman on New Year's Day.

During a Sunday news conference, Columbus Police Lt. John McMichael announced that 28-year-old Joey Betrail Garron, 23-year-old Robert Carl Johnson and 23-year-old Ketorie Glover were all facing charges of "felony charges of aggravated assault, rape, kidnapping, aggravated battery, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated sodomy, arson first degree, hijacking a motor vehicle and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime," according to the Ledger-Enquirer.

As a convicted felon, Glover was also facing additional charges for possessing a firearm.

McMichael said that the incident had occurred on Jan. 1, when police responded to calls of a woman crying for help on a vacant lot. Officers found the woman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

Investigators determined that the woman had been participating in a rap contest at a party on New Year's Eve. At some point, one man became angry and ordered the woman into a car at gunpoint. Two other men later joined the first man.

The men drove the woman to the vacant lot, raped her, shot her, and set fire to the car.

The suspects continued shooting at the woman as they walked away from the scene, police said.

“It was not just one thing that led us to the suspects,” Deaton explained, calling the incident a "very brutal crime" and promising that there was "still more we can do."

On Sunday, bond was set at $500,000 for both Garron and Johnson on nine of the charges. The men were ordered held without bond on the sodomy, hijacking, rape and aggravated sexual battery charges.

At a bond hearing for Glover on Monday, Deaton told the court that the woman was in "extremely bad shape."

"She may never walk again. She may never have the use of her left arm," Deaton noted. "She was in a coma for three weeks. They had to remove part of her lower intestines, and she's still receiving 'round the clock care."

Glover's wife and cousin both insisted to the Judge Michael Cielinski that it would have been impossible for him to have committed the crime.

"He was with me and my family," Glover's wife, Ashley, remarked. "We had never seen [the victim], so he couldn't have known her. Either his homeboy knew her, or maybe they were going together, I don't know. But he never went over there."

Cielinski ordered Glover held without bond on the sodomy, hijacking, rape and aggravated sexual battery charges. Bond was set at $275,000 for the other charges.

Watch this video from Chattanooga News, broadcast Feb. 17, 2014.

[Photo credit: Firefighter struggles to put out burning car (Shutterstock)]