Brandon Dekil Tarver was found guilty by a jury of malice murder and armed robbery in connection with the shooting death of the proprietor of a convenience store.1 The State sought the death penalty. The jury set the punishment at life without possibility of parole finding the following statutory aggravating circumstances: the murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of an armed robbery OCGA §b 2; the murder was committed for the purpose of receiving money or any other thing of monetary value OCGA § 17-10-30 b 4; and the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved depravity of mind OCGA § 17-10-30 b 7. Tarver appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support the armed robbery conviction, as well as the jury’s finding of the statutory aggravating circumstances. For the reasons which follow, we affirm the judgment of conviction and sentence, and the finding of the b 2 and b 4 statutory aggravating circumstances. However, we conclude that the evidence was insufficient to support the b 7 aggravating circumstance. The victim William Westbrook owned and operated a convenience store in Riddleville, Georgia. Customers discovered Westbrook’s body on the floor of the store. He had been shot four times in the head and chest; each gunshot wound would have been fatal within a relatively short period of time. Westbrook’s wallet and pistol were found near the body. Although Westbrook normally kept several hundred dollars in cash in his wallet, the discarded wallet contained no money. The police also found a plastic bag containing a white powdery substance which appeared to be cocaine, but which later tested negative for narcotics. The investigation ensued.
Several months later, Tarver’s friend Roger Poole described to the GBI case agent a plot that Tarver had concocted to place the blame for the shooting on a Derek Carlyle, in order to avert suspicion from himself. In furtherance of that plot, Tarver gave Poole a handwritten note describing the crime in great detail, including information that was not made public. Poole was to use that information and confess to the crime, claiming to be Carlyle. Ultimately, Poole gave the note to the GBI agent and implicated Tarver.
