Fetus dies after mother, 20, tied up, smothered in DeKalb murder

Terique Dwayne Hall

Terique Dwayne Hall

With zip ties binding her hands and feet, Ashley Mays, a 20-year-old Lithonia woman, drew her last breath in a hotel room.

Police believe she was suffocated with a pillow.

Mays was nearly 9 months pregnant. The child didn't survive, police confirmed Thursday.

When she died, Mays had just been sexually assaulted by a man who is also suspected in a similar, but non-fatal, assault a week earlier, according to warrants.

Terique Dwayne Hall, 24, of Atlanta faces charges of murder and rape in the newly released warrants.

The killing happened at Quality Inn and Suites at 5300 Snapfinger Park Drive on the morning of Nov. 18.

Police pulled surveillance footage. The photos released to media showed a large man walking in the hotel, wearing a dark jacket with an American flag decal stretching across the back.

He drove a dark blue Chevrolet Impala.

Before his arrest Tuesday, Hall was pulled over on a traffic violation in the same car, in the same jacket, police said. He remains in the DeKalb jail without bond.

A woman who answered Hall's phone Thursday declined to comment. Efforts to reach Mays' family weren't immediately successful.

The warrants say investigators learned Mays had been featured on Backpage.com and connected with Hall there. The site is known to feature personal listings and ads for escorts and prostitutes.

The site is also how Hall allegedly met the victim in the earlier case.

Warrants say he came to the woman's Lithonia home and forced her upstairs with a handgun. He allegedly bound her hands and feet with zip ties and assaulted her.

Neighbors reported seeing a large man in a dark jacket with an American flag.

He drove a dark blue Impala.

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