On Aug. 6, 2014, Adam Schrier was killed inside his Gwinnett County home. His girlfriend and her 8-year-old daughter were shot.
Brian Joseph Brewner did not physically participate in the home invasion, but authorities believe he masterminded the plan that led four other men to the home on Summercrest Lane that day — and on Friday, a Gwinnett County jury convicted him of murder.
Channel 2 Action News reported that the jury returned its verdict against Brewner around 7:30 p.m. Friday, finding him guilty of charges including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to children. He has not yet been sentenced.
Brewner’s conviction comes under Georgia’s party to a crime statute, which holds that someone who “aids or abets” in the commission of a crime is just as guilty as the person who actually commits the crime.
“In Georgia,” Assistant District Attorney Nigel Lush told Channel 2, “even if you do as little as he claimed he did, it still makes you part of the crime and they found him guilty.”
Prosecutors and Duluth police have previously said that Brewner devised the plan to send a robbing crew to Schrier’s home in pursuit of drugs and money rumored to be stashed there. Brewner also picked up his co-conspirators after they entered the home early in the morning and shot Schrier, his girlfriend and her 8-year-old daughter, authorities said.
Jami Smith and her daughter survived the attack, but Schrier died from his wounds.
In an emailed statement sent to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday, Schrier’s stepfather, William McNeese, thanked Lush and the law enforcement officers involved in the case.
“While we feel like justice was rendered in this case, there are four other suspects yet to be tried in this matter [and] our prayer is that justice will be meted out to all those involved,” McNeese wrote.
The trials of Brewner’s co-defendants — including alleged triggerman Devon Antonio Jenkins — have not yet been scheduled. Online records showed they were arraigned last week.
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