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Kathan Guzman was “released in error” from a Georgia jail in March, following a guilty verdict for the killing of his girlfriend
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He was apprehended in Florida two weeks later in April
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Guzman was found guilty in 2024 of one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault for the 2022 death of his 19-year-old girlfriend Delila Grayson
A Georgia man, who was mistakenly released from jail following a guilty verdict for the killing of his girlfriend, has been found after two weeks in a different state, authorities said.
On Friday, April 11, Clayton County Sheriff Levon Allen shared a statement on the sheriff’s office’s official Facebook account, announcing that the U.S. Marshals Service apprehended Kathan Guzman in Florida.
“Investigators quickly gathered intelligence, followed up on leads, deployed surveillance teams, brainstormed ideas, and utilized a variety of techniques to narrow down Guzman’s location—which was determined to be outside the state of Georgia,” the statement said.
“Once I contacted the U.S. Marshals and turned over all the information gathered, they began their work,” Allen continued.
According to ABC News, which cited the U.S. Marshals Service, Guzman was taken into custody in the city of Ocoee, where he was “arrested without incident at his mother’s residence” by the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. He was booked into the Orange County Jail and will be extradited to Georgia, per WSB-TV.
Orange County Sheriff’s Office/X
Kathan Guzman
Related: Fla. Child’s Father Charged with Her Murder 2 Years After Reporting Her Missing: Police
PEOPLE has reached out to the U.S. Marshals Service office for comment.
Guzman was “released in error” from the Clayton County Jail at approximately 4:49 p.m. local time on March 27.
“The cause of the release is under investigation, and disciplinary actions are pending. Once the investigation is complete, it may result in the termination of employees within the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office,” Allen said in his statement.
He added that Guzman’s “inadvertent release” was discovered on April 8, 2025, at approximately 1:47 p.m., when “the District Attorney’s Office of the Clayton County Judicial Circuit contacted me directly inquiring about Guzman.”
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Clayton County Jail in Georgia
The Clayton County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the “erroneous release” in its own statement.
According to the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, when the incident occurred, Guzman was awaiting transfer to the Georgia Department of Corrections, where he was slated to serve his life sentence.
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Guzman was found guilty of one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault in late 2024 for the August 2022 death of his then-19-year-old girlfriend Delila Grayson, according to a prior press release from the Clayton County District Attorney’s Office.
“After strangling Delila to death, the defendant moved her body to the bathroom, closed the door, left the apartment, and did not contact law enforcement for ten plus hours,” the press release said.
Read the original article on People