Aug. 24 (UPI) — A Georgia sheriff’s investigator who was shot and seriously injured during a confrontation with a child sex abuse suspect this week has died from his injuries, local officials have announced.
Investigator Taylor Bristow of the Carroll County, Ga., Sheriff’s office succumbed to his injuries after being hospitalized in critical condition, department officials announced Friday in a Facebook post.
He had been rushed via life flight to an Atlanta hospital following Tuesday’s incident in Carrollton, Ga., located about 50 miles west of Atlanta.
Authorities said Bristow was shot by a suspect identified as Christopher Bly, 40, as Carroll County deputies and personnel from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were serving a search warrant issued by the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit.
The sheriff said Bly retreated into his home after investigators knocked on the door, produced an handgun and fired, striking both himself and Bristow. Bly was pronounced dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Agents said they located and seized “multiple electronic devices within the home which contained child sexual abuse material.”
“The grief we carry for the passing of one of our own is beyond words, but we are grateful to be part of a community whose overwhelming support and love is just as immeasurable,” the sheriff’s department said in an issued statement.
On Saturday, a police escort transported the investigator’s remains from the GBI crime lab along Interstate 20 to a funeral home in Bremen, Ga.
Bristow died less than week after another Georgia sheriff’s deputy was killed in a shooting while responding to a domestic dispute call.
In that case, Paulding County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Brandon Cunningham, 30, died at a hospital after being shot outside a home home near the city of Hiram, Ga., on Aug. 17.