A woman accused of fatally shooting her new husband near the Varsity restaurant was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Arelisha Bridges, 45, was convicted in the March 2010 death of her husband of six days, 26-year-old Anthony Rankins Jr., Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard’s office said in a statement Thursday.
Eyewitnesses said Bridges parked her car in the parking lot of the North Avenue restaurant around 10:45 p.m. and left it idling as she followed her husband, who was walking down the street. She opened fire on him on the sidewalk, prosecutors said, and kept shooting after he fell to the ground. Rankins was shot five times, with fatal wounds to his head and chest.
Witnesses told police Bridges was wearing a nightgown and a shower cap, and after the shooting she “calmly walked away,” the AJC previously reported.
Bridges apparently was upset because her husband had taken her house keys, prosecutors said.
She was arrested on the scene by a MARTA police officer, and the gun was found by Atlanta detectives in the pocket of her bathrobe on the passenger seat of her car.
Jurors found Bridges guilty of murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses.
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