SUMMERVILLE, Ga. – Two Rome, Ga., teenagers are going to prison for life after a jury convicted them of murdering a convenience store clerk in a robbery for cash, cigars, cigarettes and Doritos.
Assistant District Attorney Kevin Baugh relied on surveillance video, taped jailhouse phone calls and testimonies from acquaintances of Dylon Dave Allen and Zaykives Banard McCray in his closing arguments against the two men Friday morning. Allen’s and McCray’s lawyers attempted to discredit the testimonies, telling the jury that the people speaking out were framing them to stay out of prison themselves.
Zaykives Banard McCray is charged with malice murder, felony murder and armed robbery. Zaykives Banard McCray is charged with malice murder, felony murder and armed robbery.
Baugh said the testimonies fit perfectly with surveillance videos of Allen and McCray during the robbery and at a McDonald’s in Armuchee later that night. It also fit with evidence found at Allen’s girlfriend’s apartment when investigators searched it.
“With this many layers of evidence,” Baugh told the jury, “reasonable doubt is not only gone – it’s obliterated.”
In January 2016, two men wearing masks burst into the Melanie Inn Convenience Store on Hawkins Drive in Summerville. According to surveillance video, one of them shoved a customer to the ground. The other shot the clerk, 47-year-old Chiragkumar Patel, in the gut with a .380 handgun.