PEACH COUNTY, Ga. — Georgia Supreme Court justices have upheld the murder conviction for a man found guilty in the 2015 shooting death of a Fort Valley boy.
That's according to the Supreme Court of Georgia.
In January 2015, 8-year-old Jai'Mel Anderson was shot and killed while playing video games at his stepfather's apartment in Fort Valley.
According to testimony in the trial, three men, 25-year-old Dennis Eason, 21-year-old Kristian Wipfel, and 22-year-old Tevin Sams, went to the Indian Oaks Apartments and fired more than a dozen shots through the door, killing the child.
The Supreme Court of Georgia said Sams appealed, saying that there was no evidence that he was a party to the crimes and that the State’s only evidence that was alleged to link him to the crimes was "uncorroborated accomplice testimony." The court did not agree and chose to uphold the conviction.
Witnesses says the target was actually Anderson's mother's boyfriend, because he didn't pay for marijuana.
Wipfel, Eason, and Sams were each convicted of several charges, including murder. Two other codefendants, Antonio Garvin and Jeremy Jackson, also pleaded guilty in the boy's death.