The Gwinnett County case began with a man found shot near his car in 2021.
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Surveillance video and a gun found hidden in a motorboat helped convict a Gwinnett County man of killing his neighbor during a dispute that prosecutors said began with Jack Russell puppies.
The jury found 75-year-old Stanley Nathaniel Elliott guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in the death of Anthony Collins. A judge sentenced Elliott to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus five years. The verdict turned a 2021 neighborhood shooting into a completed murder case after jurors reviewed footage, heard witness testimony and considered the history between the two Lawrenceville men.
The evidence trail started on Feb. 25, 2021, when Gwinnett County police were called to Riverside Parkway after Collins, 44, was found shot near his vehicle. Early information from police focused on a man seen walking in the area who was known to carry a large stick or pole. Investigators released video as they looked for that person, then arrested Elliott after speaking with him. What first appeared to residents as a sudden shooting near a dog park became a case built around a known neighborhood figure and a prior encounter over Collins’ dogs. Prosecutors said video from the neighborhood showed a man resembling Elliott raising his arm after a short interaction with a man walking dogs. The clip did not stand alone at trial. Jurors also heard that Elliott and Collins had met before, in December 2020, when Elliott tried to hit Collins’ puppies with a metal rod. Witnesses said Elliott used the rod to ward off stray dogs. That testimony gave jurors a timeline that began months before the killing and framed the shooting as the end of an ongoing conflict, not an isolated chance meeting.
Police later searched Elliott’s property and found the gun used in the killing inside a motorboat in his garage, prosecutors said. The location of the weapon became one of the most concrete details in the case because it connected the firearm to Elliott’s home after the shooting. The gun evidence supported the firearm charge and added to the prosecution’s account that Elliott had armed himself before or during the encounter with Collins. Officials have not detailed in public reports how long the weapon had been hidden there before officers found it.
Collins had been walking Jack Russell puppies on the afternoon he was killed. Reports from the case place him in a neighborhood along Riverside Parkway in Lawrenceville, a Gwinnett County city northeast of Atlanta. Police found him in a parking area near his car after the shooting. The setting mattered because the case began in a common outdoor space, close to a popular dog park and near places used by residents for everyday activities. Prosecutors did not describe Collins as armed, and no public report said he had threatened Elliott before the fatal shot.
At sentencing, Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson described the shooting as an unacceptable answer to a dispute. “Violence, and especially deadly violence, is not the answer for solving any dispute,” Austin-Gatson said. She said prosecutors hoped the verdict would give Collins’ friends and loved ones closure and a sense that justice had prevailed. The statement came after a trial in which the state relied less on a long verbal account of the confrontation and more on physical evidence, recorded footage and testimony about what had happened before.
The charges reflected how Georgia prosecutors framed the killing. Felony murder allowed the state to tie Collins’ death to the alleged aggravated assault. The separate firearm count brought the added five-year prison term. Elliott’s age also marked the case. He was 70 when he was arrested after the shooting and 75 when sentenced. The life term means he will remain in prison unless parole officials later approve release under state rules. Public reports do not say whether a notice of appeal has been filed.
The prosecution team included Assistant District Attorney Nam Nguyen and Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Ryan Smith. The district attorney’s office also credited Investigator Benjamin Lucas, Victim Witness Advocate Trina Bradford and the Gwinnett County Police Department. Their work linked a 2021 call for help to later courtroom evidence, including the video trail and the firearm recovered from the garage. The case moved from a search for a person of interest to a conviction after jurors accepted the state’s version of how the neighborhood encounter turned deadly.
Some details remain outside the public record. Officials have not released a full account of what Elliott and Collins said to each other before Collins was shot. Reports describe a brief altercation and a short interaction, but not the exact exchange. The puppies were central to the conflict described in court, but public summaries do not say they were struck or hurt on the day Collins died. Those gaps did not stop jurors from finding Elliott guilty on all three charges after hearing the state’s evidence.
Elliott now faces a life sentence with the possibility of parole and an additional five years for the firearm conviction. The next public step would be any appeal, post-trial motion or prison-system update. Collins’ death remains recorded as a neighborhood killing that investigators solved through footage, witness accounts and a weapon found hidden at the defendant’s home.
Author note: Last updated June 1, 2026.