Atlanta Living category interest

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Two men have been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a Lithonia convenience store owner in 2020, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced Tuesday.

On July 1, jurors found Ronnie Miller, 46, and Ricky Character, 24, guilty on charges including malice murder and felony murder in the killing of 57-year-old Tesfaye Birru.

On Tuesday, the judge sentenced Miller to life without the possibility of parole plus 45 years. Character was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus 35 years.

Around 10 p.m. on Feb. 19, 2020, DeKalb County police responded to a person shot at a convenience store on the 2700 block of Evans Mill Road in Lithonia. When they arrived, officers reportedly found Birru, the store’s owner, dead from multiple gunshot wounds in the parking lot.

Boston said the keys to the store were still in Birru’s hand, and officers found a gun and a holster near his body.

Investigators said surveillance video showed three masked men with guns pull up in a vehicle with its lights off and wait for Birru to lock up the store. One of the masked men, who was also wearing a camouflage jacket and blue shoes, then ran up to Birru.

Birru tried to pull his own gun on the suspect, but the masked man shot him, the district attorney said.

One of the other suspects then “emerged from around an ice bin and shot Birru in the head,” and the three men drove away, Boston said.

The DA said police received information that led them to Miller. Search warrants turned up the camouflage jacket, blue shoes and ski mask in his car.

Boston said cellphone data placed Miller at the convenience store during the murder. Investigators also found a cellphone number in Miller’s contacts belonging to Character.

Investigators found that “Character and Miller communicated before and after the murder.”

Cellphone data also placed Character at the scene of the murder, “and he made incriminating statements on social media that implicated him in the murder,” the DA said.

Along with malice murder and felony murder, Miller and Character were convicted of aggravated assault, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Miller was also convicted on separate counts of felony murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

The pair were “also linked to a January 2020 robbery in Rockdale with a similar fact pattern,” Boston said.

The third suspect still hasn’t been identified.