The “mastermind” behind a plot to rob Troup County business owners will spend life in prison after a botched heist left an accomplice dead.
Malcolm Jamal Holloway, 29, was convicted Friday of felony murder, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, aggravated assault and four counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony for his role in the fatal 2018 shooting, prosecutors said.
He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus an additional 20 years.
On June 27, 2018, Holloway recruited five people to ambush LaGrange business owners and rob them as they drove home from work, said Herb Cranford, district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit.
The men, identified by prosecutors as Antony Rashad O’Neal, Anthony Morris Jr., Sellus Culvin, Christopher Jamar Jacobs and Javontay Carr, hid in the treeline along Steeplechase Drive and opened fire on a car that drove by, authorities said.
Police received a call just before midnight from the driver of the car, who said they were shot at multiple times as they drove past a man appearing to experience car trouble. No one inside the car was hurt.
Prosecutors said as Carr shot at the victims, he ran into the gunfire and was killed by an accomplice. Though Holloway was not there at the time of the shooting, evidence showed he was “the mastermind of the robbery plot,” Cranford said.
“He showed the other perpetrators where the victims lived, he watched the victims as they closed their business, he followed the victims home, and he communicated with his co-conspirators as they laid in wait at the ambush location,” Cranford said. “Because Carr’s death was a direct result of the conspiracy to commit armed robbery and the attempted armed robbery planned by Holloway, Holloway was criminally responsible for Carr’s homicide.”
O’Neal, Morris, Jacobs and Culvin pleaded guilty in the case and were given prison sentences ranging from 12 to 21 years, prosecutors said.
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