The story behind how Marietta-based Cobb County Senior Assistant District Attorney Linda Dunikoski came to be the lead prosecutor for the Ahmaud Arbery case in Brunswick has more twists than the six-hour trip between the two cities.

The drive covers 325 miles of freeways across ever-flattening landscapes between the edge of the Appalachian foothills in northwest Georgia to the coast in the southeastern quadrant of the state. The journey to finding the lead prosecutor covers five district attorneys and then two more lead trial lawyers and involves the state attorney general, the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the 2020 election upset that turned Georgia blue.