2018 Update: Inside the gang killing spree that a DeKalb County couple and 3 others
Christopher “Crisco” Spencer and Vernon “Veto Corleone” Beamon, members of a Crips gang subset, heard about some money they wanted. It belonged to a DeKalb County grandfather of three and his fiancee, the rumors said.
The men stalked the couple, tying them up one day last October with ropes and cords, keeping their hands and feet behind their backs. The men killed both victims with gunshots to the back of the head before ransacking the home, the district attorney's office said.
As far as investigators can tell, the men found that the rumors were false. There was no settlement.
On Thursday, Spencer and Beamon were each convicted of multiple counts of murder in the deaths of Samuel White Jr., 54, and Sylvia Watson, 57. Judge Courtney L. Johnson sentenced them to life without parole. Spencer got an extra 30 years, Beamon an extra 25.
White was a beloved surgical tech at Northside Hospital who once saved the life of a woman who fell on a MARTA track. Watson, a religious woman, came from Los Angeles and appeared smitten with White. She posted his photo to her Facebook page, where she also shared messages about the importance of family and the power of prayer.
On the morning of Oct. 24, the defendants found Watson outside the apartment she shared with White near Stone Mountain. She had just come back from a doctor’s appointment.
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They forced her in the car at gunpoint and made her drive to different ATMs to withdraw money. Bank surveillance footage would later help police identify Spencer, the district attorney’s office said.
The men, members of the Rollin 20s Crips set, ordered Watson to go back to The Park at East Ponce Apartments. White was there.
The victims were forced to the floor, face down. They were shot in the back of the head.
“They then ransacked the apartment for nearly an hour, leaving with a TV and other small items,” the DA’s office said in a news release.
The men fled, without any settlement money.
A friend who’d been staying with White and Watson came in later and found the couple, bound and bloodied, tied together.
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