Nicholson fight ends in shooting

NICHOLSON - What started as a fistfight between a Nicholson man and his much younger friend escalated into a shooting Wednesday afternoon that put a Jefferson man in intensive care and sent the Nicholson man to jail.

Michael Grady Miller, 62, of Nicholson, was jailed on a charge of aggravated assault after he allegedly shot 26-year-old Ricky Beatty of Jefferson, Jackson County sheriff's deputies said.

Beatty remains in critical condition at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta with several gunshot wounds, deputies said.

Beatty and Miller were sitting outside Miller's home on Georgia Highway 335 near U.S. Highway 441 with Beatty's girlfriend and another woman shortly after 5 p.m. when the two men started to argue and then to fight, said Maj. David Cochran of the sheriff's department.

"It was a domestic argument," Cochran said. "It involved something about the females not wanting leave, but I'd rather not go any farther than that."

During the fight, Miller - who Cochran said had been drinking - pulled out a handgun and shot Beatty, Cochran said.

This is the second time in three weeks deputies were called to a Nicholson-area home for a domestic dispute involving a shooting - a 25-year-old man allegedly shot his father to death April 19 at a home off New Kings Bridge Road south of Nicholson.

When deputies arrived at Miller's home - just off the main road through the center of Nicholson - Wednesday evening they found Beatty on the ground and the two women standing over him.

Miller went inside with the gun and deputies surrounded the home, according to the deputies' report. The women and a deputy carried Beatty to the front of the yard so paramedics could attend to him without getting between Miller and the deputies.

Miller surrendered about 15 minutes later, Cochran said.

Beatty was airlifted to Grady and underwent surgery Wednesday night, according to a statement released by Jackson County Emergency Services.

Sheriff's investigators would not comment on the relationship between Beatty and Miller, except to say they were friends.

In the April shooting, deputies arrested Robert Adam Jones, 25, of 212 Sawdust Trail, on an involuntary manslaughter charge after he allegedly shot his 47-year-old father, Leroy Jones, during a late-night fight.

The men argued when the son got home after a night out, deputies said.

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