In 2015 he was a high school soccer captain and JROTC leader. Why is he going to prison?

Three years ago, Quatrell Spearman graduated from Macon’s Westside High School, where he captained the soccer team and was a JROTC commander.

Now, at 21, he is going to prison for armed robbery in a stickup that netted him less than $1,000.

Why would a young man who at least seemed to have good things going for himself ruin his life at age 19? Some answers, namely using the drug Xanax, emerged Thursday in Bibb County Superior Court, where Spearman pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 13 years behind bars and seven more on probation.

Spearman, who had gone to college in Atlanta for about a semester before dropping out, was a month shy of his 20th birthday when the robbery happened.

Armed with a pump-action shotgun, Spearman showed up at a stranger’s house on Laurel Place in Barrington Hall, a golfing subdivision along Zebulon Road, a mile or so west of Interstate 475 and a few miles from his own house.

It was there that Spearman and a female accomplice were said to have snuck up on a 57-year-old woman in her garage the evening of Jan. 10, 2017, as the woman was returning home. Spearman ordered the woman to hand over $80 in her wallet and an ATM card. About that time, the woman’s husband stepped into the garage, startling Spearman.

A sheriff’s report would later mention that Spearman told the couple that he and his 21-year-old love interest and alleged sidekick, Jasmine Byrd, armed with an Uzi, “were not going to hurt them.” Even so, months afterward at a bail hearing for Spearman, the woman he held up, Gloria Jedneski, testified that she and her husband, David, were afraid they were about to die. The couple have since moved out of the house because of what happened.

Spearman and Byrd took off after the robbery, authorities have said, and Spearman was captured after using Jedneski’s debit card to take $502 from an ATM and also using the card at Kroger and Walmart.

Byrd, charged with armed robbery, was arrested in Illinois and is in the Bibb jail awaiting trial. Spearman, who could have been sentenced to life, is expected to testify against her.

In court on Thursday, Spearman’s mother, in the gallery with his sister and father, sat and wept.

Judge Howard Z. Simms told Spearman, standing before him, to turn around and look at his mother.

“Most of the people that stand there don’t have anybody sitting out there. … They come in here alone,” Simms said. “You didn’t wreck just your life, you wrecked other people’s lives. The folks that lived in that house, your mama, your sister. Son, you’ve put a lot of people through hell, because of one stupid decision.”

Prosecutor John Regan said “the saddest thing about this case” was that the Jedneskis didn’t feel safe in their home anymore. As for Spearman, Regan added, “I think he’s getting a tremendous break.”

Spearman’s lawyer, Travis Griffin, said Spearman’s crime was “fueled by some voluntary drug use. Xanax was at play.”

Griffin read aloud a letter Spearman wrote to the judge: “At the premature age of 19, I never knew how a couple of Xanax bars and alcohol could change the rest of my life. … I clearly see this is not the life for me. … I’d like to apologize to you and to the victims.”

Speaking on his own behalf, Spearman then said, “I know I made a mistake in my life. … I was on drugs. … I’ll answer to my mistakes.”