Arrest in AJ Jewel’s Beating Death

Oct 032009

Atlanta homicide detectives have arrested a suspect in the beating death of the former fiancé of the newest member of the reality television show The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Fredrick Richardson has been charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Ashley “A.J.” Jewell, who was engaged to Kandi Burruss until last August, died of massive head injuries he suffered in a “one-on-one” fight in the parking lot of an Atlanta strip bar, the Body Tap Club in the 1200 block of Marietta Boulevard.

Richardson was also hospitalized due to injuries sustained in the fight and is at Grady Memorial Hospital, but will be jailed once released by medical staff.

Atlanta police spokesman Officer James Polite said detectives were still “trying to figure out [what happened]. We had a pretty good number of witnesses that are being cooperative.”

But the cause of the fight was still not known Saturday.

Polite said Jewell worked at the club but he did not know in what capacity. Burruss said in an interview with the entertainment Web site Essence.com last month that Jewell had bought an interest in an Atlanta club but she did not identify the business.

Burruss, who has a daughter, was flooded with condolences Saturday on her social networking pages on Twitter.com and MySpace.com.

Kandi Burruss thanked friends for their condolences and asked for prayers for Jewell’s six children.

She also asked to be left alone. “im just in one of those moods where i dont wanna talk, i dont wanna b held & told its gonna b ok. i just wanna cry myself 2 sleep, alone,” she wrote on a Twitter.com post.

She also posted that she had to get some rest before her Uncle Ralph’s funeral on Saturday.