Atlanta Living category interest

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Stone Mountain man was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 21 years for killing a pastor in 2022, according to the DeKalb County District Attorney.

The district attorney’s office said Christopher Devonta Griggs, 29, killed Marita Harrell, 56, on May 18, 2022.

Harrell was a pastor who worked with inmates and those recently released from jail. She met Griggs in 2021 through another inmate and met him in person after his release.

The pair met at Griggs’ home on Panola Road. According to the district attorney, Harrell sent a friend a text message saying, “if I should disappear today check out Chris’s [sic] Griggs.”

Around 10:30 p.m., Harrell’s body was found inside a van in a wooded area off Coffee Road in Lithonia. Her body was partially burned and wrapped in bedding from Grigg’s bed.

The district attorney said Harrell’s family had tracked her phone after she didn’t come home that night.

The next day, a SWAT team went to Griggs’ home at the same time as a cleaning crew Griggs hired. Griggs was not at the home.

Crime scene investigators later found blood in oil stains on the carpet inside the home.

A woman who was renting Griggs a room at the home said she had been sleeping. When she woke up, Harrell’s minivan was in the driveway and Griggs asked her to “follow him in her car so that he could drop the van off for someone,” according to the district attorney.

Griggs was arrested at a nearby motel after sending the woman a video claiming full responsibility for the killing, the district attorney said.

Griggs was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a knife during the commission of a felony, concealing the death of another, tampering with evidence, and theft by taking.