He claimed he acted in self-defense when he shot an unarmed man five times in a Paulding County neighborhood. But a jury didn't buy it.
Lowe Deontae Payne was convicted of murder Friday and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, the Paulding District Attorney’s Office said. He was also convicted of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony for the 2017 murder of Carldrake Finister in the Vista Lake community in Dallas.
Finister, 20, was a 2015 graduate of Paulding County High School and a student at Georgia Perimeter College, his sister told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after his death. Finister and Payne lived in the same neighborhood where the killing happened, investigators previously said.
They believe a verbal altercation near the tennis courts turned physical. And though Payne claimed self-defense, witnesses told police a different story. He later surrendered to authorities.
Finister’s family members attended the trial and spoke during the sentencing hearing, the DA’s office said.
“The defendant showed a lack of emotion and remorse throughout the trial and continued into the sentencing hearing,” the DA’s office said in a Facebook post.
Judge Dean Bucci sentenced Payne to an additional five years for the firearms charge, the DA’s office said.
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