Two Convicted In Shooting, Murder In Pappadeaux Parking Lot

MARIETTA, GA -- A Cobb County jury has convicted two men in the 2016 armed robbery and murder of a couple in Marietta. Demarious Kevauh Greene, 23, and Dylan Marquis Ledbetter, 25, were both found guilty of murder and other charges Thursday morning in an armed robbery that occurred Oct. 7, 2016. Greene and Ledbetter accosted Cynthia and Anthony Welch in the parking lot of Pappadeaux in Marietta as the Welches returned to their car after a birthday dinner.

Court testimony revealed Anthony Welch, 48, stepped in front of his wife to protect her and was shot in the heart with a bullet from a .380 caliber handgun. He died a short time later. Cynthia was also shot once with the same gun, with a bullet entering through her arm and stopping on the side of her chest. As Cynthia lay on the ground, one assailant pulled a necklace from her neck before the attackers fled in a vehicle. Police reviewed security video from the restaurant and began trying to identify the getaway vehicle by its taillights.

Four days later, two men armed with a handgun robbed a man of a chain necklace and other items in the parking lot at the Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta in Woodstock. Police believed the two cases could be related. This robbery occurred in the daytime, allowing better images of the attackers and their vehicle, and investigators issued a BOLO for the vehicle, which had Florida tags.

On Oct. 15, 2016, the vehicle from the Cherokee case was spotted at the Red Roof Inn motel in Marietta, about a half mile from Pappadeaux. Police confirmed the tag matched the BOLO, and when the vehicle left the motel, conducted a traffic stop. Ledbetter was driving, with Greene in the front passenger seat and a third man sitting in the back.

Ledbetter pulled into a Shell station as if to stop, but as officers approached he attempted to flee. That’s when his vehicle struck a Cobb officer, hit another car and then jumped a curb, causing its airbags to deploy. Greene jumped out and ran to a nearby Masters Inn motel. Ledbetter also ran, but straight toward a plainclothes officer who fired his weapon, striking Ledbetter three times.

The third man remained in the vehicle with his hands up. A K-9 officer searched the trail from the car to the Masters Inn and recovered the chain belonging to the Woodstock victim. A search warrant yielded a .380 Kel-Tec pistol, reported stolen earlier that month in Broward County, Florida, that GBI ballistics experts later matched to the bullets removed from Anthony and Cynthia Welch.

Both men were convicted of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, and firearms-possession charges. Ledbetter was also found guilty of aggravated assault on a peace officer. Both have already been convicted of charges in the Woodstock armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison for that crime. Ledbetter remains charged with attempted murder for an August 2016 attack in Broward County, where he is accused of shooting a man in the head, leaving him partially paralyzed. That victim as well as the Woodstock robbery victim were among the state’s witnesses in this trial.