Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the victim as the shooter’s best friend.
An Acworth man admitted Monday to killing his co-conspirator in 2014 over an argument about a stolen tractor-trailer full of furniture they’d stolen.
Orain Clifton Patterson, 30, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and possessing a firearm as a felon during a felony, according to a new release from the Cobb district attorney’s office.
Patterson admitted that he shot 24-year-old Tavin Campbell three times in his torso. Patterson had a previous felony conviction for violently assaulting another person, prosecutor Jesse Evans said.
Cobb Superior Court Judge A. Gregory Poole accepted the negotiated plea and gave Patterson a 30-year prison sentence, with credit for time he’s already served.
“He executed Campbell out of greed and in anger,” Evans said.
The shooting happened Sept. 20, 2014, at Campbell’s Marietta apartment.
Several days before that, the men stole a tractor-trailer filled with furniture that belonged to Patterson’s father.
They were keeping the furniture in a Clayton County apartment, but “tensions between the two were mounting over what to do with the items,” said the district attorney’s office.
That’s when Patterson, Campbell’s unsuspecting friend and a 16-year-old girl went to Campbell’s Mulkey Road apartment. While the girl waited in the car, Patterson shot Campbell inside.
Patterson and the teen fled to the Miami area where U.S. Marshals arrested him two days after the killing.
Campbell’s mother and sister were in the courtroom but asked the prosecutor to speak on their behalf.
He told the judge that the victim’s father and several other family members “could not bear to be in the courtroom,” and that Campbell’s death had devastated the family.
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