A plan for some fast cash to get an impounded car left two men dead.
Nearly a decade later, five people have been sentenced in the robbery-gone-wrong killings of 27-year-old Christopher O’Neal Jackson, of Marietta, and 28-year-old Mableton man Mark Anthony Jones.
Two women lured the men from a sports bar to an apartment where three men jumped and killed them, according to a Cobb district attorney’s office news release.
This week saw guilty pleadings from three of the suspects: Desmond Omar Post, now 36 years old; Rolaunda Bridget Fripp, 30; and Joseph Eugene Brown, 34.
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Post and Fripp pleaded guilty to manslaughter, armed robbery and aggravated assault. They each got 10 years in prison and 30 years probation. Brown copped to a pair of felony murder counts and got two life sentences.
The other two suspects, Darchelle Renee Arnold and Jarvis Amartis Butts, previously pleaded guilty.
“The families of Jones and Jackson have suffered immeasurably from this devastating loss,” said prosecutor Jesse Evans.
Evans and the prosecutor’s office presented a case showing that the defendants decided a robbery was the best way to get money to retrieve an impounded vehicle.
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The two women, Fripp and Arnold, lured the men to the former Las Colinas apartment complex on Franklin Road. Jackson and Jones, in addition to a third man, went along “under the guise of partying,” prosecutors said.
The three male suspects jumped the two men and demanded cash. There was a scrap, during which Jackson and Jones were shot. The third man with them got away and called 911.
All five were arrested later that day, Dec. 9. 2009.
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Arnold, now 30, pleaded guilty in May 2011 to felony murder and aggravated assault charges. She was sentenced to life in prison.
Butts, now 30, was convicted of felony murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault charges in 2012. He was got two life sentences, plus 20 years.
After a continued legal battle by some of the defendants, this week seemingly closed the case for the families of Jackson and Jones.
“We are so pleased to at least be able to provide them with finality,” Evans said.
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