A Cobb couple who confided their crime to cellmates got 15 years in prison Friday for killing a Florida man by giving him heroin.
Gharri Nicholas Lawson, 34 of Jacksonville, Fla., was a guest at a home shared by Danielle Matzkow Darby and Terry Louis Thomas II in March 2014 when he died of a drug overdose.
Darby and Thomas called 911, saying they couldn’t wake Lawson up at the home on Elberta Drive, but they aroused suspicion by almost immediately pawning his jewelry, according to District Attorney Vic Reynolds’ office.
“They told police that Mr. Lawson had only been taking pills,”said prosecutor Jesse Evans. “The toxicology report showed that to be false and confirmed what inmates had revealed. That, coupled with the pawning of the jewelry, showed this was a homicide, not a mere overdose.”
Cobb police charged them with theft and while in the Cobb jail, five other inmates said the couple had conveyed that they gave Lawson heroin to facilitate their theft.
The two pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Adele Grubbs.
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