Suspect Arrested Three Years After Photographer Was Shot Dead After Leaving Studio

A suspect has been arrested three years after a well-known local photographer was killed after leaving his photo studio in Atlanta.

Photographer Bryan Brown was found shot to death and his cell phone stolen in a car parked in front of a Wells Fargo bank in South Fulton, in Atlanta, Georgia, on February 10, 2023. The 38-year-old photographer owned a successful studio in East Point in Atlanta.

The day before his murder, Brown had been in his hometown of Blakely, Georgia, where he and his photographer husband Philippe Bertrand were opening a second studio. According to 11 News, Brown later returned to the East Point area and stopped by his photography studio. Bertrand said he spoke to Brown by phone Thursday night as Brown was heading home.

“He said he was on his way home, and ‘I’ll see you soon.’ And he never made it home,” Bertrand told 11 News.

According to Brown’s best friend Samuel Chatman, who also spoke to the news outlet, the photographer made it to the studio, but the way he appeared to have left his workspace was out of character.

“It looks like he was rushed out. We saw papers shuttered around, candles still lit, door was unarmed. That’s never anything that he would do,” Chatman said. “To leave the studio in that kind of manner. It started there and ended up at Wells Fargo.”

Surveillance footage showed the vehicle in which Brown’s body was later found backing into a parking lot around 2 a.m. on February 10, 2023. Brown was discovered dead inside the car later that morning. Investigators initially considered that the case might be suicide. But a review of surveillance footage revealed an unidentified person running away from the vehicle at around 3:11 a.m., prompting police to investigate the shooting as a homicide.

For three years and eight months, Brown’s killer remained at large. During that time, Brown’s husband Bertrand conducted his own investigation and identified Mamadi Sylla as the suspect who allegedly shot and robbed the photographer. Bertrand forwarded the name to police and in September, police finally arrested Sylla.

“I called every other day for three years and eight months. And they told me he was a suspect,” Bertrand tells WSB-TV Atlanta 2.

Sylla now faces murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, and other charges for Brown’s death. Sylla is being held in jail without bond.