Though their key witness was slain in an unrelated incident last week, Fulton County prosecutors won conviction of a man charged with firing the shots that killed a security guard outside a northwest Atlanta lounge last year.
A jury Thursday found 36-year-old William Perkins guilty of voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges during a gun battle outside O.T.'s Lounge Soul Food Grill, prosecutors said in a news release.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter sentenced Perkins to 25 years in prison. The suspect's co-defendant, Lavanda Heard, pleaded guilty a week before his trial and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
"In an ironic and tragic twist last week, Vanessa Thrasher, owner of O.T.'s Lounge, was shot and killed inside her establishment during an apparent armed robbery," Yvette Jones, spokeswoman for the Fulton District Attorney's Office, said in the news release.
Thrasher, a 53-year-old Lithia Springs woman, was the state's key witness in the Perkins case.
"Despite the huge void left by her murder, prosecutors proceeded with the case and prevailed," Jones said.
Otis Ricks, 23, was arrested and charged with Thrasher's death. So far, no evidence suggests any connection between the woman's scheduled testimony and her killing, Jones said.
According to prosecutors, Perkins confronted Heard — both defendants' names were spelled incorrectly in initial reports of Thrasher's death — at O.T.'s Lounge the night of May 24, 2011. Heard left to get a gun, and Perkins followed.
Jerome White, 35, who was working security for the lounge, followed the pair out, tried to intervene and ordered Perkins to leave the property. Perkins refused. Soon, both Perkins and Heard were shooting at each other.
White was struck and fatally wounded. Before he died several days later, he was able to describe the incident to police and identify the shooters, prosecutors said.
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