A felon who was arrested more than 30 times in Fulton County was found guilty Friday of fatally shooting a man at a LaGrange home nearly four years ago, prosecutors said.
Charlestavius Dyer, 35, was convicted of murder in the killing of 56-year-old Willie Render Jr., who was chased and shot several times outside the Brown Street residence on May 29, 2020.
“Render was known to people in the community as being a gentle, always smiling man,” Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herb Cranford wrote in a news release Wednesday afternoon. “He mowed people’s yards and was known as a peacemaker.”
Police found Render with gunshot wounds to the chest and back, officials said. Emergency responders took him to Wellstar West Georgia, where he was pronounced dead.
Surveillance footage introduced at trial showed Dyer using a friend to buy a box of .45 caliber ammunition at a LaGrange gun store earlier that evening, according to Cranford. Dyer also discussed buying a handgun, prosecutors said, which he was prohibited of doing as a four-time convicted felon for firearm and drug offenses.
Later that evening, Dyer and Render got into an argument at a friend’s house after Render declined to buy drugs from him, witnesses told police. They noted that Dyer had decided to move from Atlanta a few months earlier to establish himself as a drug dealer. After the argument, Dyer left the residence in a white car but came back about five minutes later and shots were fired.
“The physical evidence introduced at trial showed Dyer started firing a .45 handgun in the street, chased Mr. Render up the driveway, and shot Mr. Render in the chest and back,” Cranford said.
An anonymous tip led police to a home, where Dyer was arrested roughly 90 minutes after the gunfire, according to prosecutors. There, a .45-caliber handgun was found wrapped in a plastic bag, with his fingerprints found on the gun’s magazine, Cranford said. Bullets taken from Render’s body also matched the gun, along with four shell casings police recovered from the murder scene, the release stated.
During the week-long trial, a friend of Dyer’s who prosecutors said was driving the white car changed his story, stating that Dyer acted in self-defense. However, his testimony was rejected by a Troup County jury after it failed to match the physical evidence, Cranford said.
Dyer denied being involved in the killing, police said, and he never testified. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole as a recidivist.
On Friday, he was also found guilty of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 5.
“For this senseless murder, it is just that Georgia law mandates that this murderer spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Cranford said. “It bears repeating that Dyer chose to move from Atlanta to LaGrange to establish a drug trade after having been convicted of three felonies and arrested over 32 times, despite being only 35 years old.”
“He is one of many examples of why repeat offenders need to be incarcerated for substantial sentences to protect our community and good citizens like Mr. Render,” he added.
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