Life Sentences For Gang Members Convicted In Brutal Murder

ATLANTA -- Five gang members recently convicted of murdering a man who had been a California police witness were all sentenced to life in prison Friday morning. The Fulton County DA's office said the men devised a plan to lure Christopher Dean, 33, to one of the men's apartment to torture and murder him in an effort to show other gang members that working as a police witness would not be tolerated.

On October 17, 2016, Christopher Lockett invited 33-year-old Christopher Dean to the Atlanta home of Xavier Gibson and his brother, 30-year-old Orlando Gibson. Dean was under the assumption that his visit to the Gibson home was to complete a drug transaction between himself and Lockett. The two men had completed similar transactions in the past; however, prior to this visit to the Gibson home, Lockett learned that Dean was once a police witness in California. Lockett and the members of his criminal street gang devised a plan to torture and murder Dean.

When Dean arrived at the Gibson home on Sandy Creek Drive, he encountered Lockett's associates, Xavier Gibson, Orlando Gibson, Quatez Clark, and Joshua Rooks, who were all members of the same street gang. For over an hour, Dean was brutally beaten with a two-by-four and a crowbar, and sodomized. Dean was then shot twice in the back of the head.

• Five Gang Members Convicted In Brutal Atlanta Murder

Rooks then drove from the scene to a location on Markone Street in Atlanta to pick up Jasper Green and 25-year-old Lamar Almon. The three returned to the murder scene where Lockett paid Almon and Green to clean up brain matter and blood from murder and to burn the victim's body and his car. The original plan was to place Dean's body in the trunk of Lockett's car and drive the vehicle to a location and burn it. However, Green and Almon decided to leave Lockett's car, with Dean's body in the trunk, in the parking lot of the H.E. Holmes MARTA station.

On Friday, Lockett was sentenced to life without parole. Clark received two consecutive life sentences plus five years, while Green received life plus three years. Both Rooks and Gibson received life sentences.