A convicted murderer and trained MMA fighter is on the loose after he was mistakenly released from Georgia prison when workers were not paying attention on the job, officials said.
Kathan Guzman was only five months into a life sentence in the Clayton County Jail — located about 15 miles from downtown Atlanta — after he was found guilty of felony murder for strangling his 19-year-old ex-girlfriend Delila Grayson in August 2022, WSB-TV 2 reported.
On March 27, Guzman walked free from jail over what Clayton County Sheriff Levon Allen called a training failure and jailers not paying close attention to Guzman’s file.
Allen said that workers looked at a court document that showed a motion to not prosecute but didn’t realize it was for only one of the charges he faced.
Guzman, 23, was charged with necrophilia in connection to Grayson’s murder, but the charge never stuck and appeared on his file as the motion not to prosecute.
The staffers at Clayton County Jail didn’t look further into his files where he was charged with felony murder and aggravated assault and allowed him to leave the prison.
“It just shows negligence on the part of the sheriff’s department,” chairwoman of the Clayton County Commission Alieka Anderson-Henry told WSB-TV 2.
Jailers only realized that Guzman had been freed when the state called to have him transferred to another prison, a source told the outlet.
Clayton County District Attorney Tasha Mosley said her office was notified that a murderer was mistakenly released two weeks ago at around lunchtime on Tuesday, 11 Alive reported.
“I am not happy about this mistake made by a sheriff’s office employee,” Mosley said. “My staff worked hard to get justice for the victim’s family and to make our streets safe and we are just disappointed.”
The Clayton County Sheriff’s Office has yet to release a statement to the public about Guzman being on the loose as of early Thursday morning.
“Sheriff’s office said they haven’t informed the public because they don’t want Guzman to know they’re looking for him,” 11 Alive reporter Cody Alcorn wrote in the comments of a post of his article on Facebook.
The Post has reached out to the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office and US Marshals for comment.
The mother of Guzman’s ex-girlfriend, Christina Grayson, told Alive 11 that she got word her daughter’s killer was mistakenly released on Tuesday — and said she’s now fearing for her own life.
“How does this happen?” she said. “I am petrified for my life. I mean, obviously, a life didn’t mean a thing to him.”
Christina said that Guzman’s release and his whereabouts, which are still unknown, should worry not only herself but also the public.
“Considering seeing what he did to Delilah, I would say that the public is in imminent danger,” the mother said.
“He would have gotten away with taking her life if it wasn’t for the neighbors beneath them coming out and taking a glimpse of him.”
Christina also told Fox 5 Atlanta that Guzman is a trained mixed martial arts fighter.
“We’re talking about somebody that is trained in MMA,” she said.
“He is a trained killer with his hands, and he looks nice and friendly. No one is safe. The public is not safe.”
She also condemned the sheriff’s office for not realizing he was mistakenly released sooner.
“It’s scary to know that someone could just be released because of a mistake,” Christina said.
“And then we wait for two weeks. We don’t alert anyone.”
