Mystery surrounds the deaths of twin brothers whose bodies were found on top of a Georgia mountain less than 90 miles from their home in an Atlanta suburb.
Qaadir and Naazir Lewis, both 19, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, were scheduled to fly to Boston to visit friends on March 7, but they missed their 7 a.m. flight, according to family.
Hikers found their bodies 24 hours later near a hiking trail on top of Bell Mountain in Towns County near the North Carolina border.
The brothers were both shot to death and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said preliminary findings indicate their cause of death as a murder-suicide.
A gun was found near the bodies and was dusted for fingerprints. The bodies were also tested for gunshot residue — but authorities did not say which brother pulled the trigger.
Plane tickets to Boston were found inside the twins’ wallets.
Lawrenceville is an hour and 50-minute drive from Hiawassee, which is one of 9 “Sundown towns” in Georgia where Black people were hanged in the 1800s.
Family members say the twins have never been to Hiawassee, and the twins didn’t hike.
The grieving family questions the GBI’s preliminary findings that one of the brothers fatally shot the other before taking his own life.
The family members say something else happened to the brothers on top of Bell Mountain.
“How did they end up out in the mountains? They don’t hike out there; they’ve never been out there,” their aunt Samira Brawner told 11Alive News.
“They’re very protective of each other. They love each other,” their uncle Rahim Brawner told 11Alive. “They’re inseparable. I couldn’t imagine them hurting each other because I’ve never seen them get into a fistfight before,” Rahim said.
The twins had been excited to visit friends in Boston, but they never boarded their flight. The GBI will review surveillance video at the airport to determine if they made it there and who they left with.
Qaadir and Naazir’s aunts and uncles are desperate for answers as to how the teenagers died.
“They don’t know anything about Hiawassee, Georgia. They never even heard of Bell Mountain. So how did they end up right there?” asked their mother.
The GBI confirmed autopsies have been completed, but further forensic tests are still pending.
The story has made national headlines, meaning more pressure will come to bear on authorities to provide clear answers. Family members don’t believe the murder-suicde theory.
“We knew right away that wasn’t true,” Samira said. “We want answers, we want to know exactly what happened to the twins.”
Another aunt, Yasmine Brawner, also refused to accept the cause of death as murder-suicide.
“They had a huge support system. We know them. They wouldn’t do anything like this. To say they did this to each other? No. Something happened in those mountains, and we want answers,” Brawner said.
“They came from a family of love, and twins wanted so much for their future – they had dreams of starting their very own clothing line,” Yasmine wrote on the GoFundMe page to raise funds for funeral expenses.
Family members are also confused by the location where the brothers were found. They don’t know how the twins got to the top of Bell Mountain, a scenic tourist attraction in the Georgia wilderness.
Family members say Bell Mountain is not somewhere the brothers had ever mentioned or even visited before.
The family have since made an emotional plea for witnesses to come forward. Someone had to have seen the twins in Hiawassee or on the popular hiking trail.
“Somebody knows something,” Samira Brawner said.
“They didn’t just walk up that mountain and die. Something happened to them.”
Watch the video below.
