Two Atlanta cousins who had targeted female gang members but shot and killed two bystanders instead were convicted and sentenced to life plus 85 years in prison Friday, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office announced.
According to prosecutors, the September 2010 shootings started when the mother of one of the suspects alleged on Facebook that her son's girlfriend was cheating on him. She went on to threaten the girl, a member of the female gang Young Crew.
The suspects, Juarquez Jones and Ladarrius Jones, had targeted four females belonging to the Young Crew but instead shot and killed Thaddeus Nelson, 25, and Randy Wilder, 27, as they stood in the front yard of their Paines Avenue home in northwest Atlanta. The day before the Sept. 14 slayings, Juarquez Jones had fired shots at the female gangsters outside a local grocery store but missed, prosecutors said.
The two youths were acquitted on gang charges, and a third suspect, Juarquez's brother, Samuel Jones, was found not guilty on all counts, said his attorney, Herbert Adams, Jr.
Juarquez and Laddarius Jones, both 18, were each found guilty of two counts of murder, felony murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
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