ATLANTA - A 42-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for killing four men, including one from Gainesville, at two different hotels in 1998.
Timothy Dawson was convicted November sixth after a three-week trial in the shooting deaths of three men in the Atlanta Hilton And Towers hotel and another man at a Days Inn in College Park. Dawson could have been sentenced to death.
He was charged with killing Ronald Gutkowski, 51, of Leesburg, Florida, Phillip Dover, 31, of Gainesville, Georgia, and Gerrold Shropshire, 50, of Altamonte Springs, Florida, at the Hilton on October 18th, 1998. The three were in Atlanta to attend a Falcons football game. LaDarius Hawkins, 19, was killed in College Park a few days earlier.
The three Hilton victims were forced to lie on the floor of their room and shot in the head.
A maid at the Atlanta Hilton found the three men's bodies, dressed only in underwear, in their blood-splattered 24th-floor room. Dawson was arrested outside Memphis, Tennessee, two weeks later.
Authorities found driver's licenses, credit cards and other property belonging to the victims in the trunk of Dawson's car when they pulled him over in Memphis.
Tuesday
May 6th, 2025
11:33PM
