A 20-year-old man has been arrested in the rape and murder of a 7-year-old Canton, GA girl, according to AJC.
GBI Director Vernon Keenan identified the man as Ryan Brunn, who was taken into custody around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. Keenan said Brunn lived at the River Ridge apartment complex where Jorelys lived and was killed, and had been a maintenance worker there. Tips from the public led investigators to Brunn, Keenan said. Source
Police called the killing “planned and calculated,” as more than 65 local, state and federal investigators currently worked on the case since the girl’s body was discovered in a dumpster Monday.
Residents of the complex where Jorelys’s body was found told the AJC that police had been in and out of a maintenance worker’s apartment. But police declined to identify the worker until today.
Jorelys was playing with friends in the apartment’s playground on Friday when she went to get drinks for her friends and never returned.
Brunn, who has no known criminal record, had been under police surveillance since Tuesday evening, Keenan said. He had been employed at the complex since Nov. 7, John Bankhead, GBI spokesman, told the AJC.
“We are confidant that Brunn is the killer, that’s why he’s in custody,” Keenan said, when asked if there are any other suspects.
Neighbors in the complex told the AJC they were relieved at news of an arrest. Lorenza Wright said he heard the news, along with his mother and brother, when he went home for a lunch break.
“We all burst into tears,” Wright said. “We were ecstatic.”
