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Ex-ABAC student charged in death

• Marlissa Webb was found bludgeoned and stabbed to death at her grandparent's home last week, authorities said.

J.D. Sumner

AUSTELL — A former Abraham Baldwin College student is in jail on charges of murdering a 16-year-old metro Atlanta girl Saturday, authorities said.

Matthew Wilkins, 19, of Austell, has been booked into the Cobb County Jail charged with murder in connection with the death of Marlisa Webb.

Wilkins was a business major in his second semester at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton at the time of the victim’s death, but has since withdrawn from spring semester classes, ABAC officials said.

According to Natalie Poulk, deputy chief of the Austell Police Department, Webb’s body was found in the bathroom of her grandparent’s home Jan. 19. She had been badly beaten and stabbed multiple times, Poulk said.

“This was a brutal crime,” Poulk said. “We did recover some items we believe may be the murder weapon, but those are still being tested at the crime lab.”

Poulk said that Wilkins knew Webb, but the exact nature of their relationship still has not been determined.

“He has yet to issue a statement to us,” Poulk said. “So we still have a lot of unanswered questions.”

In an effort to answer some of those questions, investigators were on campus this week searching through Wilkins’ ABAC apartment, Poulk said.

“They were executing a search warrant on campus in Tifton,” Poulk said. “At this point we really don’t want to get into what they were looking for or what, if anything, they found.”

Webb was a student at South Cobb High School and was staying at her grandparent’s house when she was killed. Her grandparents had left the home to go to a funeral and discovered her body when they returned, Poulk said.

A motive for the murder has yet to be established, although Poulk did say that nothing appeared to be missing.

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