Savannah man arrested in slaying of 19-year-old debutante

<p>Police Tuesday arrested a Savannah man in the fatal Christmas Eve shooting of a 19-year-old debutante in the city's famous downtown historic district, triggering a public outcry for city officials to crack down on crime.</p><p>Michael Thorpe, 25, has been charged with murder and aggravated assault with intent to commit armed robbery in the slaying of Jennifer Ross, who was shot during a mugging near Orleans Square hours after attending her debutante ball.</p><p>Ross died from her gunshot wound on New Year's Day at the Savannah hospital where her father is an executive vice president.</p><p>Sgt. Mike Wilson, a Savannah police spokesman, said investigators connected Thorpe to Ross' slaying through "leads generated out of the community."</p><p>"We are absolutely confident" police arrested the right suspect, Wilson said, adding that police expected more arrests in the case, though he would not name any other suspects.</p><p>The murder of Ross, a Savannah native who had been studying international business at Mercer University in Macon, was the 29th slaying reported by Savannah-Chatham County police in the past year.</p><p>"We're really relieved," said Adger Ross, Jennifer Ross' uncle. "We're grieving and this does not change that loss, but we certainly feel safer."</p><p>The killing sparked a massive outcry from some of Savannah's most prominent business leaders and friend's of Ross' father, Rusty Ross, a senior vice president and attorney for Memorial Health University Medical Center.</p><p>It also put a spotlight on an underbelly of crime that mars the picturesque landscape of manicured squares, Spanish-moss draped live oaks and antebellum homes that make downtown Savannah one of Georgia's top tourism draws.</p><p>Ross attended her Christmas Cotillion, her formal introduction as a woman of society in Georgia's oldest city, on Dec. 23 and continued celebrating with friends into the wee hours of Christmas Eve in a downtown district clustered with restaurants, bars and nightclubs.</p><p>Ross and three friends were walking in search of a taxi when three men jumped them near Orleans Square, according to police reports. Ross was shot while one of the men tried to take her purse.</p><p>Police got a break in the case Jan. 12 when a tip led them to a gray Ford Taurus that investigators believe the suspects used to flee the shooting. The car had been stolen from a local auto dealer, Wilson said.</p><p>Ross' friends described seeing the men enter a gray Taurus, but Wilson would not say what evidence police had linking the car to the crime.</p>