The teenager, Omarian Banks, approached the apartment about 12:30 a.m. Friday and began knocking on the door under the impression that his girlfriend was inside, police said. After Banks, 19, walked away, a man inside appeared on his second-floor balcony to confront him and opened fire.
The suspected gunman, Darryl I. Bynes, 32, has been charged with murder.
Banksâ girlfriend, Zsakeria Mathis, 23, had been waiting for Banks because he had called and asked her to open the door. The conversation lasted three seconds.
âI went to open the door and he wasnât standing right there,â Mathis said Sunday. Mathis could not see Banks so she started walking out of her apartment and soon heard faint voices.
âThe voices were not loud enough to be an argument or an altercation,â Mathis said. She said she soon heard a gunshot.
âIt stopped me in my tracks,â Mathis said. Then she heard her boyfriend apologize for the mix-up.
âIâm sorry, Iâm at the wrong house,â Banks said, according to Mathis. She said she then heard a man use a racial slur and say, âNah, youâre at the right houseâ â followed by two more gunshots.
She said she saw Banks on the grass and ran to him as she screamed his name but he did not respond. âHe had tears in his eyes and I noticed the gunshot to his neck, and I screamed, âSomebody help me!ââ Mathis said.
Police said Bynes and Banks had a âverbal exchangeâ before Bynes fired a handgun three times from his balcony. Banks was pronounced dead at the scene.
Bynes is being held without bail. A lawyer listed in court records for Bynes could not be immediately reached Sunday.
Banks, who was a crew chief at a McDonaldâs restaurant, had just left his motherâs house, his mother, Lisa Johnson, said Sunday.
âHe said he was tired,â Johnson said. âNormally his girlfriend would pick him up, but she sent a Lyft for him, and 30 minutes later she was on the phone saying he was dead.â
Mathis and Banks, who turned 19 in March, had been living at the apartment complex for eight months, Johnson said. She said Bynesâ apartment looked identical to her sonâs from the outside, making it easy to mistake for his own.
Mathis said Banks always called her when he was close to home.
âI always open the door,â she said. âEvery other time he has always been there, but that time he got out in front of the wrong doorway.â
Bynes faced charges of driving without a valid license in 2015 and possession of marijuana in 2010, according to court records. The disposition of those cases was not immediately available.
Bynesâ family said he acted in self-defense and to protect his children because his car had been stolen earlier in the week, WSB-TV reported. Police on Sunday could not immediately confirm if he had reported his car stolen.
Johnson said she was trying to make sense of her sonâs death.
âI donât understand. I am dealing with the why,â she said. âHow someone could be that evil to just shoot someone that clearly made a mistake and was begging you for their life? This was a kid that was fleeing.â
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.