Atlanta Living category interest

Antonio Wilson, Roswell, Atlanta man sentenced to life (with no chance for parole) for strangling to death Fabiola Thomas who had rejected him after having initially met on a dating app.

A Georgia man has been sentenced to life behind bars for killing a woman he met on a dating app. Prosecutors said the victim and the defendant had met a few times before rebuffing the man’s advances and rejecting him.

Fabiola Thomas, 39, was shortly after murdered by a then 38 year old Antonio Wilson in 2019.

A Fulton County judge on Tuesday sentenced Antonio Wilson to serve life without the possibility of parole for malice murder.

The sentencing follows Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis saying her office is proactively litigating domestic violence cases.

‘It’s one of the hardest crimes to make sure that we combat,’ Willis told WSB-TV. ‘This is an issue that’s really close to home for me.’

Come Tuesday, the unit won a conviction in Thomas’ murder.

‘This is really, a sad case,’ Willis said.

Fabiola Thomas, 39, was attacked and killed in her Roswell apartment in 2019.

The woman’s death came just one month before her 40th birthday.

‘My sister was attacked and murdered in her home,’ the victim’s brother, Myrto Charles told the outlet. ‘My sister enjoyed and loved life. She had dreams and goals she wanted to accomplish, yet that all died with her, when she was gasping for her last breath.’

‘She unfriended Antonio Wilson the day before she died,’ Senior Assistant District Attorney Nalda Charles said.

The prosecution says text messages show Wilson couldn’t handle Thomas’ rejection towards him before he strangled her inside her Roswell apartment.

‘Keep your ring, I’m not your woman, never was, stop claiming me because I never claimed u,’ Thomas wrote in a text.

Investigators discovered that Thomas and Wilson had only dated briefly after they met on a dating app.

‘Ms. Thomas did everything that you would think you should do. She told her friends where she was going. She would only meet him in public places,’ Assistant District Attorney Abigail Pottn.

While, in Wilson’s mind, things moved quickly, Thomas clearly did not reciprocate those too-much, too-fast feelings. While he appeared to fall in love apace, she just as swiftly rejected him.

‘She unfriended Antonio Wilson the day before she died,’ Senior Assistant District Attorney Nalda Charles told WSB-TV.

The woman also made her decision not to get involved with the would be suitor quite explicit.

‘I don’t give a [redacted] about a ring,’ Thomas wrote in a text to Wilson, ‘keep your ring, I’m not your woman, never was, stop claiming me because I never claimed u.’

ADA Nalda Charles said after Thomas rejected Wilson’s advances, he found where she lived and attacked her at her home at the Atlantic Newtown Apartments in Roswell, a far flung suburb of Atlanta, GA.

‘And that is the most chilling part because she’s getting ready for work, she’s in her pajamas,’ she said.

Thomas was killed early in the morning on June 8, 2019. Neighbors reported seeing her outside near her car at around 7:30 a.m. that day. At around 8:40 a.m., her roommate called police.

‘The male caller was frantic and hysterical, he advised officers that his roommate was in his bathtub and that something bad had happened to her,’ law enforcement said at the time.

Jurors saw the crime scene photos, heard from witnesses who put Wilson at the scene and heard from Thomas’ roommate who found her body lying in a tub. It took the jury only 30 minutes to find him guilty.

‘It was just so egregious. It was unnecessary, it didn’t have to happen. She was unarmed, defenseless, and in her home, all because she said no.’