Georgia Supreme Court docket upholds a person’s conviction for the homicide of a lottery winner – WSB-TV Channel 2

BEN HILL COUNTY, Georgia – A man convicted of murdering a lottery winner faces his jail term after the Georgia Supreme Court upholds his murder conviction.

Dabrentise Overstreet was one of seven accused for the 2016 murder of Craigory Burch Jr. in Fitzgerald, Georgia. The 20-year-old died just two months after winning $ 434,272 by hitting the Fantasy 5 jackpot.

Overstreet argued that the evidence presented at the trial was insufficient to support his criminal murder charge, but judges disagreed in a statement released Tuesday.

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“The evidence, including Overstreet’s testimony of boasting about the shooting to others involved in the crimes, also empowered the jury to conclude that Overstreet then shot Burch multiple times after demanding money from him. Therefore, the evidence presented at the trial was sufficient to support Overstreet’s conviction of malicious murder, ”the statement said.

After winning the jackpot, Burch bought Christmas presents for children in his neighborhood and bought a new home for him and his girlfriend.

Prosecutors said Overstreet and others “did not appreciate that Burch had bought gifts for the neighborhood kids and stated that they were planning to rob Burch for making him ‘bow’ and ‘boastful” by handing out the gifts. “

So Overstreet and the others put on their ski masks and broke into Burch’s apartment under cover of darkness to steal his lottery winnings, the prosecutor said.

When they got to the house, they kept asking, “Where’s the money?” One of the men then shot Burch twice in the knee.

Burch’s children were in the house during the robbery. He yelled, “Don’t do this in front of my children.”

Prosecutors said the men left the house a few minutes later but soon returned and shot him five more times, killing him.

Authorities said the men got away with $ 200 and some cell phones.

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They were later arrested and charged with murder.

All seven suspects were charged with willful murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime.

In 2018, then-Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a law allowing lottery winners to remain anonymous on jackpots greater than $ 250,000. The lottery will not determine the winners, even under the Open Records Act.

In 2008, a Laurens County woman was stabbed to death in her home after winning a $ 5 million lottery jackpot.

Derrick Lorenzo Stanley of East Dublin has been charged with the death of Doris Murray, mother of 4. The Associated Press said family members called 911 and said they saw Stanley leave their humble home with blood on their faces.

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The sheriff’s investigator Sgt. Stan Wright said he believed Murray and Stanley may have argued over a split.

“Her family said they’d been friends for a while,” Wright said. “Then she told him she wanted to break it off and be friends and that was it. After everything they told me, he didn’t want to accept that. “

Murray had planned to use the money to open a trust fund for her grandchildren, according to a lottery press release issued at the time of her win.

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