A grieving Georgia family still has questions after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ruled the deaths of 19-year-old identical twins Qaadir and Naazir Lewis a double suicide on Wednesday after weeks of investigation.
Hikers found the Lewis brothers’ bodies at the top of Bell Mountain in Hiawassee, Georgia, near the Tennessee border, on the morning of March 8. Initially, the GBI floated the theory that their deaths were the result of a murder-suicide. The family rejected those statements immediately, as well as the findings in the final report.
Late Thursday night, Yasmine Brawner, Qaadir and Naazir’s aunt, took to social media to question the report’s findings.
“The twins were not suicidal, Naazir girlfriend form Boston stated that they were planning a future together and to one day get married and have children she stated that he was not depressed or suicidal. Qaadir was planning to become an entrepreneur and both twins were still enrolled in college,” Brawner wrote on Facebook.
Questions began to swirl as soon as the unusual circumstances around the brothers’ deaths were revealed nearly three months ago. Raised in Lawrenceville, about 90 miles south of Hiawassee, the brothers’ aunts Sabriya and Samira Brawner – also identical twins – told Fox 5 the two teens had never been to Bell Mountain before and had no reason to be there.
The family said the brothers were scheduled to take a trip to Boston the day before they died, but the GBI found that only Naazir had purchased a ticket. On March 7, the GBI says Naazir went to the airport but didn’t catch his flight. He returned home later that day.
Brawner wrote on Facebook that Naazir’s girlfriend, who lives in Boston, told her that Naazir had missed his flight and rescheduled his ticket for 7 a.m. the following day. She added that the brothers’ stepmother, who was the last relative to see them alive, confirmed that Naazir had booked a flight for the next morning.
According to the GBI’s forensic findings, both Qaadir and Naazir fired the gun found at the scene on the day they died. According to the report, Naazir purchased the ammunition used in the gun that was delivered to their house earlier that week.
The family believes that the bullets were purchased for protection, not self-harm.
Cell phone data from the night before they died tracks the brothers traveling from Gwinnett County to Bell Mountain in Towns County. Surveillance footage from a gas station in Gwinnett County shows them alone, drinking water and eating snacks at 10:30 p.m. on March 7, just before they made their way to Hiawassee.
The family says they were told by the GBI that the twins’ cell data was unable to locate them during the last 30 minutes before their car reached Bell Mountain, raising questions about how they were able to find the park entrance.
“They drove a 2009 Nissan Altima that had no GPS navigation system installed in their car. We would like to know how they were able to navigate to Bell Mountain with there phones off and no navigation in their car,” Brawner wrote.
She also questioned why their car was found behind the park’s gate, which is supposed to be locked every night by a Town’s County sheriff when the park closes at dusk.
Adding to the mystery, a week after their bodies were discovered, Scott Kerlin, a Towns County volunteer firefighter, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor obstruction of justice for taking photos of the death scene and sharing the images on social media. Kerlin has since been dismissed from duty as a volunteer firefighter and was never identified as a suspect in the case.
The GBI said their investigation into the deaths of Qaadir and Naazir will be formally closed in the next few weeks.
For relatives of the Lewis brothers, many questions still remain about what happened on the night they died and whether there was foul play.
“We want to thank GBI for their release and effort to investigate, but we still have questions regarding there investigative findings and feel like there final ruling was rushed and closed too soon,” Brawner wrote on Facebook.
The family has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for a private investigator to independently look into the twins’ deaths atop Bell Mountain.
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