Survivors recount mass shooting over drugs that left 3 dead in Detroit
DETROIT (FOX 2) - During a preliminary hearing on Thursday, two women who survived a mass shooting at an alleged drug house testified against the accused gunman.
The shooting left three people dead and injured Yolanda "Auntie" Stringer and Tiffany Simpson in August 2022.
"He said ‘give me everything,'" Stringer recalled on the stand. "He was robbing us."
Jony Saad Alatto, a 32-year-old from Macomb, was charged in May with three counts of murder, two counts of assault with intent to murder, five counts of armed robbery, one count of felon in possession of a firearm, and 11 counts of felony firearm.
Jony Alatto
Alatto is accused of walking into a house on Saratoga Street near Gratiot Avenue on Detroit’s east side, stealing crack, and shooting the people inside.
"Everybody gets on the floor, he already had the drugs – but as he started to back out of the room… he just started shooting," Simpson said.
Simpson and Stringer survived the shooting, and two years later, they testified in Judge Kenneth King’s courtroom that Alatto is the one who pulled the trigger and killed their friends.
The three that died were 76, 55, and 41 years old.
One of the victims, the 76-year-old, "was laying on the floor, next to me," Simpson said. "We were facing each other, and he was shot in the side of his head; blood was running out."
Simpson added that she received multiple bullet wounds to her left side.
"I thought that he was going to come back to make sure we were all dead, so I dragged myself up the stairs and I passed out at the top of the stairs," she said.
After investigating, police arrested and charged Alatto two years later.
The judge handed the case over to the Wayne County Circuit Court; Alatto will stand trial. His next hearing will be on Aug. 15.
Macomb man charged two years after mass shooting in Detroit
The 32-year-old Macomb man entered an alleged drug house in Detroit and opened fire in 2022. He was identified and charged two years later.