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Atlanta DJ’s Wife Murdered At Home, Where Toddler Son Saw Horrifying Scene and Tried to Wake Her
Tiffany Jackson Pugh, the wife of a popular Atlanta DJ, was fatally shot in her house while her two kids were also home, making for a heartbreaking scene caught on surveillance footage.
Tiffany Jackson Pugh, the wife of a popular Atlanta DJ, was 30 years old when she was fatally shot in her house while her two young children were also home.
Pugh’s November 2014 death, featured in a new two-hour Dateline airing Friday, May 10 on NBC, sent shockwaves through the Atlanta music scene as fear spread that someone might be singling out the influential DJs who helped promote the careers of young rappers.
“The chilling echo of another DJ's murder just months prior raises suspicions of a targeted attack on the city's music community,” reads the synopsis for the episode that's titled “Sound and Fury."
“It’s way too coincidental that there are two DJs having these incidents happen to them,” journalist Christina Lee remarked in a preview video of the Dateline episode.
Even more disturbing, Pugh’s young son AJ was seen in heartbreaking home surveillance footage going to the front door to look for help after the toddler was unable to wake his slain mother.
Tiffany Jackson Pugh's killer was a "monster," her friend says
“Knowing that the kids were in the house said to me there was no heart, no regard for life — a monster,” Karmetria Burton, a former colleague and friend of Pugh, said of the killer in the Dateline preview.
The cold-blooded nature of the crime also struck NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk, who reported the story.
“Tiffany Pugh was shot and killed in her own bed. A 30-year-old mother with her whole life ahead of her,” Gosk told NBC Insider. “But beyond the cruelty of killing her, [she was shot when her] two small children were in the home.
"Andre Jr. was just two years old and often slept in the same bed with his mother," Gosk continued. "The image on security cameras of that little boy going to the front door in his pajamas looking for help will stay with me for a long time.”
Why Tiffany Jackson Pugh's murder rocked Atlanta's music scene
Just 10 months before Pugh’s murder, William Fernando Barnes — known in the club scene by the name DJ Nando — was gunned down outside his home in what Gosk described as an “execution style killing.”
“This show offers a vivid look into the hip hop rap scene in Atlanta," Gosk told NBC Insider. "And while the level of influence the strip clubs have on the industry may have waned in recent years, at the time these two murders took place, hip hop’s Atlanta was like country music’s Nashville.
“The DJs in clubs like Club Onyx made careers," Gosk added of the club where both Pugh's husband and DJ Nando worked. "They wielded an enormous amount of power over what people were listening to.”
According to Gosk, rapper Jeezy, who is interviewed in the two-hour Dateline episode, “credits his enormous success” to DJ Nando and is still haunted to this day by the brutal killing.
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Along with Jeezy, Lee, and Burton, the episode also includes interviews with Pugh’s father Tommy Jackson, Nick Love, and Sabrena Swinger.
To find out who wanted the young mom dead, watch Dateline Friday, May 10 at 9/8c p.m. on NBC or stream the episode the next day on Peacock.
And for even more Dateline, sign up for the show's official newsletter and check out its podcast.
