More than a decade after a fatal shooting at a DeKalb County fast-food restaurant, two men were recently convicted.
Rashad Rogers was found guilty Tuesday of murder and sentenced to life in prison in the 2010 death of Gary Andrews, the DeKalb District Attorney’s Office stated. The second suspect, Clifford Jackson, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter on June 10 and was sentenced to 20 years, officials added.
Warrants for Rogers’ and Jackson’s arrests were obtained Oct. 15, 2013, but they were serving time in federal prison for armed robberies that also occurred in DeKalb, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia stated in a 2012 release. The duo was transferred to the DeKalb jail after finishing their federal sentences.
On Dec. 18, 2010, police officers were called to a Church’s Texas Chicken on Flakes Mill Road regarding a robbery shortly before 9 p.m. The victim, 23-year-old Andrews, was found unconscious and bleeding from the head on the floor of the restaurant, district attorney’s office spokeswoman Lisa Myers said.
Witnesses recounted that two armed men wearing surgical masks entered Church’s and demanded entry to the safe. When the suspects learned that the cashier did not have a key, Myers said they hopped over the counter and demanded to know where the safe was located.
Meanwhile, Andrews, who worked at the restaurant, was trying to hide his coworkers in the freezer.
One of the suspects put a gun to another employee’s head and Andrews tried to intervene, officials stated. The gunman is then accused of shooting Andrews twice, striking him in the head. The suspects fled the location after taking cash from the register.
The case eventually went cold and the DeKalb police Cold Case Unit picked it up in 2012 when the FBI was simultaneously investigating an April 2011 bank robbery involving Rogers, 33, and Andrews, authorities said.
According to Myers, an “informant” told the FBI that Rogers, Jackson, and Jackson’s late father, Clifford Durham, showed up at his home after the Church’s robbery with “a lot of money and (they) were talking about the shooting.”
In November 2012, Jackson was convicted of armed attempted bank robbery, armed commercial robbery and using firearms during crimes of violence in connection with a November 2010 incident at a family-owned restaurant in Stone Mountain and another in April 2011 at a Wells Fargo in DeKalb, federal officials said. He received 16 years and an additional five years of supervised release.
Rogers took part in the April 2011 robbery and was convicted of attempted bank robbery and gun charges, authorities said. He was sentenced to nearly 14 years and five years of supervised release.
About the Author
