A Stockbridge man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of a fatal shooting during an armed robbery in DeKalb County more than four years ago, prosecutors said Thursday.
Joshua Cortez Ellis, 25, was found guilty of murder in the death of 28-year-old Ronald Peters, who was robbed and shot several times in June 2019. On Thursday, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Tangela Barrie sentenced Ellis to life without the possibility of parole, plus an additional five years, the district attorney’s office wrote in a news release.
Police believed the incident was hate-motivated at the time, but the investigation showed it “was a crime of opportunity,” DA spokesperson Claire Simms Chaffins told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Peters was walking down Orchard Circle near his home on June 4, 2019, when two men got out of a maroon Chevrolet pickup truck with guns and masks. Witnesses told police the men demanded Peters give them his backpack, but when he refused, Ellis shot him, prosecutors said.
After Peters fell to the ground, Ellis grabbed the backpack and opened fire again, according to the DA’s office. The victim was found suffering from gunshot wounds to the neck, arm and torso. He died at Atlanta Medical Center.
Peters was on his way to the MARTA station before work, his partner told police. He was from Pell City, Alabama, and worked at Regional Medical Group in Decatur as a case manager.
According to the DA’s office, detectives saw multiple alerts on Peters’ phone after the shooting that showed his debit card was used at a gas station in Lithonia. Surveillance footage from the station captured Ellis buying something with the card, which he later admitted, prosecutors said. He then got into a maroon truck, which traveled across the street to a Walmart, the release stated.
Prosecutors said Ellis and two others, Tyreese Johnson, 23, and Shaleeya Moore, 23, were then seen exiting the vehicle and walking into the store. Moore admitted to driving the truck from the shooting, the DA’s office said, and testified that both Ellis and Johnson were the two people that got out of the vehicle with guns and masks before the robbery.
“Johnson told investigators that they were only going to rob Peters, but said Ellis shot Peters before Johnson made it around the truck,” prosecutors said.
The truck, which was reported stolen in Clayton County just hours before the killing, was found a few days later in Atlanta with a possible bullet hole in a door, according to the DA’s office. Ellis was arrested by deputies in Clayton on June 6.
Credit: Clayton County Sheriff's Office / Ronald Trey Peters via Facebook
Credit: Clayton County Sheriff's Office / Ronald Trey Peters via Facebook
He was convicted of three counts of felony murder and one count each of armed robbery, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer.
Both Johnson and Moore are facing the same charges, but with one fewer count of felony murder and no possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer. Their cases are pending.
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
About the Author
