On the night of March 7, Naazir and Qaadir Lewis pulled into a Shell station near their home in suburban Atlanta, gassed up their black Nissan Altima and bought some water and beef jerky.

As they tossed out trash from the back seat, a basketball bounced out of the car, a fleeting moment of teen normalcy captured on the gas station’s security cameras. The twin brothers drove off into the night, leaving it behind.

About 12 hours later, a hiker discovered their bodies at the top of remote Bell Mountain, nearly 90 miles north near Georgia’s border with North Carolina. The 19-year-olds lay side by side on their backs, with their legs straight and their arms outstretched. Each was found with a colorful, anime-style sword.

A 1911-style .45 caliber Garrison handgun lay on the ground between Naazir’s legs.

In the weeks and months that followed, their relatives disputed the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s conclusion that the teens died by double suicide. In a brief statement in May, GBI investigators said forensic evidence from the scene showed that both twins had fired the gun.

This week, CNN obtained the GBI’s exhaustive file on the now-closed case — including documents that reveal new details about the twins’ final days. Autopsy reports show the brothers were each found with a “contact-range” gunshot wound to the right side of their head.

In their final days, one brother FaceTimed a girlfriend to show her a handgun he had obtained. He also ordered ammunition online. The other brother conducted Google searches that pointed to suicide, according to the GBI case file.

Daryl Manns, an attorney for the twin’s father, told CNN on Tuesday that even after reviewing the GBI file, the family rejects the claim the teens died by suicide, saying the crime scene appeared suspicious.

“The main thing is the way the bodies were positioned … the way the gun was positioned. They looked staged. Those things to me were a red flag,” Manns said. “They weren’t conducive to what you would consider a suicide situation.”

But the GBI file paints a portrait of two young men who appeared to be quietly struggling with stress and financial worries.

Weeks earlier, Naazir Lewis had showed his girlfriend a gun

Born five minutes apart, the twins were inseparable.

They shared the Nissan Altima and loved a lot of the same things: anime, video games, the “Mortal Kombat” franchise and animated TV shows.

The brothers lived with their father and stepmother in Lawrenceville, where they spent time outside on the deck cosplaying with anime swords, their aunt, Antoinette Lewis, told the GBI.

She described them as “nerds” who showed no signs of mental health struggles. Naazir, she said in the GBI report, once spent three hours debating her about the realism of Harry Potter storylines.

According to the report, Naazir, the older twin, was in a long-distance relationship with a woman he’d met about a year before his death. The woman lived in Boston and offered investigators a glimpse into his life.

Naazir had visited her last December and confided that he was struggling with his “house life” and growing financial responsibilities in the wake of his father’s health problems, according to the GBI report. At a press conference in June, the twins’ father, Tyrese Lewis, said he was recovering from a stroke. He insisted that his sons were not suicidal.

In late February, shortly before the twins’ death, Naazir FaceTimed his girlfriend and said he had something to show her. He went upstairs to his bedroom, held up a handgun and told her that he needed it to defend himself and his brother.

“Your man is out here being dangerous,” he told her, according to the GBI report. He did not say where he got the gun, she told investigators. Naazir ordered ammunition online the same month.

Investigators later learned the handgun had been reported stolen last December in Powder Springs, another Atlanta suburb some 48 miles from Lawrenceville. It’s unclear how the twins got it. The GBI did not provide additional information.

The twins did online searches for how to load and fire the gun
Outwardly, the twins’ lives appeared normal, family members said.

On March 6, two days before their bodies were found, they spent an evening with their older sister, Kai’ree Powell, she previously told CNN. The siblings watched episodes of “Rick and Morty” with her before calling it a night around 11. Naazir had a flight to catch for Boston the next morning to visit his girlfriend.

But searches connected to the twins’ Gmail addresses tell a darker story.

The day before they visited their sister, the box of ammunition Naazir ordered in late February was delivered to their home, according to the GBI.

Hours later, at 4:15 p.m., an account associated with Naazir’s Gmail watched a video about the 1911 gun, a classic pistol popular among firearm enthusiasts.

The same day, Naazir booked a roundtrip flight to Boston on Spirit Airlines. It was scheduled to leave Atlanta on Friday morning – March 7 – and return two days later on Sunday night.

“They were not doing what someone considering suicide would do,” said Manns, their father’s attorney. “They were shopping. They were buying things. They were planning trips.”

The morning after the twins left their sister’s house, Naazir took an Uber to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He checked in for his flight when he arrived.

Around 8 a.m., he sent his girlfriend a photo of the long TSA line and said he feared he’d miss his flight. “I think I’m cooked,” he texted her. He agreed to reschedule the flight for the next day at his girlfriend’s request and took an Uber home, where his stepmother confirmed she saw him, the GBI report said.

Naazir never rebooked the flight.

At 6:32 p.m., an account linked to Naazir’s Gmail watched a video titled, “Should You Shoot At An Angle?” Later that night, at 9:36, a device linked to his Gmail watched another video titled, “What is it like getting shot at?!”

The twins told their stepmother goodnight. Not long after, CCTV captured them at the Shell station in Lawrenceville.

The pair left the gas station alone after spending five minutes buying snacks and filling the tank. Naazir was driving while his brother sat in the passenger’s seat, according to the GBI.

About an hour later, as they neared Bell Mountain, their devices recorded more activity. At 11:34 p.m., an account associated with Naazir’s Gmail searched “how to load a gun” and played a tutorial video about loading and unloading a firearm.

Cellphone data and video footage show the twins’ Nissan arriving at Bell Mountain shortly after midnight. The gate to the mountaintop was supposed to be locked after sunset, but a Towns County sheriff’s deputy who’d worked the previous evening had left it open.

The mountain was so remote that it was not unusual for the understaffed sheriff’s department to leave the gate unlocked sometimes, according to the GBI.

Investigators have not said why the brothers chose Bell Mountain. The twins’ family said to their knowledge neither teen had ever been there before.

Investigators found a red backpack and two anime swords at the scene
On the morning of March 8, the twins’ stepmother woke up and realized they were missing. She assumed Qaadir had taken his brother to the airport, the GBI said.

She found a camera and a note in Naazir’s handwriting on the kitchen counter. “Please return to my Uncle Rahim,” it read. The twins had borrowed their uncle’s camera to take photos of an athletic clothing line they planned to start.

Later that morning, a University of North Georgia student was hiking at Bell Mountain when he came across the twins’ bodies and notified local authorities, who reached out to the GBI. The hiker told authorities he did not initially believe the scene was real and had to get another man to confirm what he’d seen.

A blue-and-white anime sword lay over Qaadir’s torso. Next to his body was a bottle of water – possibly the one purchased at the Shell station. Beside him, lying in a similar manner, was Naazir, with a black-and-purple sword underneath him.

The handgun and two spent casings were found on the ground between Naazir’s legs. In Naazir’s pockets investigators found his iPhone and a Spirit Airlines plane ticket to Boston, dated the day before.

A red backpack found near the scene contained a box of Nosler .45 caliber cartridges, Qaadir’s phone and a notebook. Written on one page in the notebook was the line, “Journey to the Afterlife.”

In the mountaintop parking lot, investigators found the Altima overlooking a stretch of bare winter trees. A half-empty bottle of Martinelli’s cider sat on the ground beside the car. Inside was a newly purchased rope and an unopened bottle of Fireball cinnamon whisky.

A scan of Qaadir’s cellphone revealed it had searched “suicide rates 2024” and “suicide rate” at an unspecified date, the GBI said. A family member who declined to be identified said he had heard the brothers in recent months discussing suicide and the challenges facing young people.

But the family member told CNN he doesn’t think it makes sense that the backpack was found elsewhere on the mountain – not by the bodies or in the car – and that Qaadir had a bottle of water beside him.

“Who says, ‘Wait a minute — let me take a sip of water before I kill myself, ‘” he said.

The ground near their bodies appeared to have small craters, as if they’d been moved, the family member said.

Investigators, checking to see if other people were on the mountain that night, obtained a search warrant for Google location data within a 200-meter radius of Bell Mountain between 11:45 p.m. March 7 and 6 a.m. the next morning. Google records found no devices in the area during that timeframe, the GBI said.

The GBI’s final report ruled the twins’ deaths a suicide. “It is respectfully requested that this case be closed,” it read.

But for the twins’ family members, the questions linger. They’re raising funds to hire a private investigator to conduct their own research into what happened that fateful night on Bell Mountain.

Their stepmother, Kaarini Gitata, told investigators the twins were not hikers and did not typically drive their car long distances out of fear it would break down. “None of it makes sense to me,” she said.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/09/us/qaadir-naazir-lewis-georgia-deaths-cec