Community grieves for murdered Georgia grandparents

In the year since they moved in about four doors down from the Bjorges, Abdallah Mansour and Abu Mloukia said they could always count on the older couple for a friendly hello.

“You’d see them mowing the lawn about once a week,” Mansour said.

But over the weekend, the scene on the Bjorges’ lawn changed into something Mansour, Mloukia and the other neighbors in the Lawrenceville neighborhood weren’t used to seeing. The house was blocked off with yellow police tape and the grass in front of the tape was speckled with flowers, crosses and candles.

Cards from grieving neighbors hung on a tree.

Gwinnett County police officers found Wendy Bjorge and her husband Randall Bjorge dead in their home off Furlong Run in the early hours of Sunday morning. Officials are now investigating the couple’s granddaughter, Cassandra Bjorge, 17, and her boyfriend Johnny Rider, 19, in connection with the murders.

Family members had been worried about the Bjorges for a while. They hadn’t heard from the couple, and early last week had begun calling Gwinnett PD asking officers to check their house.

Officers went, but nobody answered the door.

It was a violent domestic incident at Rider’s family house off Rambling Woods Drive in Lawrenceville Saturday night that led police to figure out what happened to the Bjorges. Rider’s sister said she came home that evening with her boyfriend to find that her room had been torn apart. Some of her things were missing, according to a police report.

Her brother had come home earlier that evening after going missing for two weeks. She said she confronted him about the mess, according to the report. She even said he could keep everything he had allegedly stolen except for a watch she had borrowed from a friend.

Rider reportedy responded by spraying his sister and her boyfriend in the eyes with pepper spray. Bjorge jumped into the scuffle and hit Rider’s sister in the back and the head with a baseball bat, according to the report.

When officers got to the house, they could see blood on a wall and door frame. The smell from pepper spray lingered in the air.

Officers didn’t find Rider or Bjorge at the house, but they did find a car they soon discovered belonged to the elderly Bjorge couple — the couple nobody had heard from in several days.

“Because of the crime at hand, officers decided to again make a welfare check at their home,” said Detective D.C. Smith.

This time, when nobody answered the door, officers went inside.

“Wendy and Randall were found deceased in the upstairs area of their home,” Smith said. “Their deaths were apparent homicides.”

Smith said detectives and crime scene personnel worked through the night and received information Sunday morning that led them to Bjorge and Rider. They were in the 800 building at the Residences at McGinnis Ferry at 4000 McGinnis Ferry Road in Suwanee.

They refused to come out for police.

So officials sent the SWAT team into the apartment, where they found Bjorge and Rider suffering from self-inflicted wounds. Both teens were taken to Gwinnett Medical Center for treatment.

Bjorge was still in the hospital as of Tuesday evening, but Rider was transferred to Gwinnett County Jail at 7:57 p.m. Monday, according to the jail log. So far, he faces three counts of aggravated battery, one count of battery and one count of theft by taking.

Detectives are still investigating the teens’ connections to the Bjorge double murder.

“Cassandra Bjorge and Johnny Rider are under investigation for the homicides of Wendy and Randall Bjorge,” Smith said. “No charges for the homicides have been obtained and the manner of death and motives are still unknown pending further investigation.”

Local police departments are familiar with both teens.

Rider has been arrested in Gwinnett County before on charges including entering auto and credit card theft.

Bjorge went missing at least twice. CFSI Georgia, an organization geared toward finding missing children, released a poster Dec. 18, 2016 declaring Bjorge missing.

Then, a post on Wendy Bjorge’s Facebook page asked friends to “be on the lookout” for her granddaughter April 1 — just eight days before officers found the grandparents dead.

The death of the Bjorges has had a clear affect on their neighborhood, Mansour said. On Tuesday he said he was still in shock.

“It’s a really safe neighborhood. People keep their doors open and nothing really happens over,” he said. “It’s shocking to see something happen — especially to grandparents.”

Cars slowed down as they passed the small shrine in the Bjorge family’s front yard Tuesday afternoon. Some even stopped so their drivers could ask questions or talk to the police officer parked outside the house.

Neither Bjorge nor Rider have been charged in connection to the homicide, but news that the two teens are being investigated has made their way to neighbors. Mloukia said it’s difficult to believe.

“It’s hard to imagine somebody having so much hate,” he said. “Especially toward people like that.”