A Marietta man will serve his second prison stint for murder, this time for life.
Aaron Strong, who did time in Florida on a second-degree murder charge decades ago, was convicted in Cobb County on Monday for killing his stepson Maurice Arnold and viciously stabbing his 22-year-old stepgrandson.
After a weeklong trial, 69-year-old Strong was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole plus five years, according to the Cobb district attorney’s office.
The Aug. 24, 2015, attack with a 12-inch bowie knife was prompted by dirty dishes left in the kitchen sink, prosecutors said.
Police reported at the time finding Arnold, 32, with one of his fingers severed and his intestines exposed lying on the porch of the Terrace Drive home that night. He was rushed to WellStar Kennestone Hospital, where he died.
Credit: Cobb County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Cobb County Sheriff's Office
Strong also stabbed his stepgrandson, Deandre Arnold, multiple times in the chest and arm.
The jury heard from nearly 30 witnesses about the stabbings and the injuries.
Jurors also heard from others who claimed to have been victimized by Strong over the years “ranging from being shot in the back with a firearm to being struck in the arm with a crowbar,” prosecutors said.
Florida Department of Corrections records show that Strong did two prison terms in Florida, including one from February 1974 until July 1983 on a second-degree murder charge in Miami-Dade County.
That charge in Florida is defined as killing someone without premeditation.
His other prison sentence there was from October 2006 to March 2007, but the crime wasn’t listed online.
Strong has been in Cobb jail since his arrest the day of the killing more than 730 days ago.
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