A man has been sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison for a double murder that happened 17 years ago, the Paulding County District Attorney announced Tuesday.
Andrew Shadrix, 44, was sentenced Sept. 27 on two counts of malice murder after confessing to the double slaying, District Attorney Matthews Rollins said.
He was arrested in May after officials connected him to deaths of Shad English and Dennis Jeffrey Jackson.
The bodies of the two men were found in the trunk of a burning car in 2002, AJC.com previously reported. Both men had been shot to death.
RELATED: Officials say man confesses to cold case double murder in Paulding
In the early morning hours of Sept. 15, Atlanta fire and police officials were sent to investigate a vehicle fire on I-20 just inside the western city limits.
“Atlanta authorities quickly discovered that there was more to the vehicle fire than they expected,” the Paulding sheriff’s office previously said.
Investigators found the bodies of English, 21, and Jackson, 19, both of Paulding County, in the trunk.
“I’ll never be able to forget it,” English’s sister, Leslie Tibbits, previously told Channel 2 Action News. “It was the worst day of my life.”
Atlanta homicide detectives continued to investigate the double murder, but the trail soon went cold.
Paulding deputies assigned to the FBI Gang Task Force began working the case again early in 2018, authorities said. The task force secured a confession from Shadrix, who told them the murders were drug-related in nature.
Shadrix was already in the Paulding jail on unrelated charges, officials said. He was 27 years old at the time of the killings.
Investigators said Shadrix confessed that the murders happened at a home in the 100 block of Cohran Store Road in Douglasville, which is located in Paulding County.
For years, officials speculated that the murders happened in Paulding, but no conclusive evidence led investigators there.
The house where the slayings took place no longer exists, officials said. It was destroyed years ago for reasons unrelated to the killings.
Shadrix’s sentence, which is the maximum allowed, was handed down because sentencing provisions from 2002 do not allow for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, according to Rollins. A Paulding Superior Court judge sentenced Shadrix to consecutive life sentences, meaning the second sentence will not start until after the first is complete.
“While we can never bring back the victims of this senseless act of violence, we hope that this brings some level of closure to the victim’s families,” Rollins said.
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